Turkish army build-up fuels anxiety on Iraq border

Above: A Turkish M-60 tank.

Turkey sent more tanks to its border with Iraq on Wednesday in a military build-up that is fuelling U.S. concern about a possible incursion into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels.

A group of 20 tanks loaded on trucks emerged from army barracks in Mardin near Syria and headed towards the Iraqi border in southeast Turkey, already the scene of a major army offensive against rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Speculation about an imminent incursion into Iraq has grown since Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said last week he saw eye to eye with the army over possible military action, despite unease in the United States, Turkey's NATO ally, about such a move.

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