OPERATION STARTED?

At the end what is expected happened (or at least beginning). Turkish F-16 jets and helicopter gunships begin bombing evacuated villages and stations inside Iraq early this morning.

According to journalists at the area they are also leaving special troops to ground bases.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani yesterday announced to reporters at the Arab League’s head quarters in Cairo; «We are exerting all our efforts to stop the terrorism threat, which imperils both Turkey and Iraq, We consider any act against the government of Tayyip Erdogan as an act against Iraq,».

Unfortunately; news at the Turkish side is not so hopeful. The Ankara chief prosecutor launched a probe into the actions of pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party's (DTP) deputy, Fatma Kurtulan, whose photographs were published in Turkish media showing her in northern Iraq amid the outlawed PKK terrorists, wearing the terrorists' clothing and carrying an automatic weapon.

Kurtulan, whose husband is an active PKK member, is accused of being a member of the terror organization. It is claimed that she had been trained by the PKK in 2003 and then sent back to Turkey, according to unconfirmed reports. Today, journalist put in light that Salman Kurtulan was receiving farming aid and agricultural trust for the last 16 years although he is out at the PKK bases. His last money pull happened last month inside Turkey from an ATM.

The newly elected leader of the Kurtulan's Democratic Society Party, Nurettin Demirtas, has been charged by the Ankara Republic Prosecutor's offices with having filed "false papers" in an attempt to escape serving in the Turkish military. According to the charges, Demirtas filed a false report claiming he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis at the time, without ever having actually gone to the hospital. If this is proven to be true, the Turkish Penal Code calls for prison time between 2 and 5 years for such a crime.

We already mentioned the court rule to order a media ban on the ongoing court case of eight soldiers who were held by the terrorist group the PKK. Media reports; The military prosecutor requested the media ban in order to preserve the safety of the investigation, avoiding distractions, providing incorrect information to the public and to protect the independence of the judicial proceedings.

Some says; the arrest of eight soldiers taken hostage by the PKK and released last week is designed to give a message to all the troops involved in the campaign in southeastern Turkey that giving themselves up to the terrorists will not be tolerated. According to sources close to the military the commanders feel such incidents should never be repeated or it will create serious lack of discipline among the troops in the fight against militants.

Critics, however, say this means the message to the troops are "you die but you should not allow yourself to be taken prisoner." Last time Turkish soldiers were taken hostage by the PKK was in 1995. The PKK held on to the soldiers for two years before releasing them.

Today's start to operation was obvious from yesterday but we were thinking it may wait at least till the foreign visitors leave the country.

Two major events must play major role for the beginning of the bombings and point operations; 4 soldiers, a lieutenant killed and 9 soldiers injured in a clash with terrorists last night. Seven civilians kidnapped two days ago. And an US commander had to took shelter at a nearby Turkish base when he targeted by terrorists' fire.

Between all these Israel's Perez and Palestine's Abbas were together in Turkish Parliament. Interesting news is; Israel and Turkey are holding high-level talks on a possible sale of the Arrow ballistic missile defense system and a model of the Ofek spy satellite to Turkey, according to The Jerusalem Post.

We cant receive enough information yet (partly because of the ban on media). Hope we can get a better picture from the opinions during night news.

Whatever happening, it is sure bombs are falling once more for an unknown tomorrow.

Israel PM Perez read a poem from famous Turkish poet Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı during his speech to Parliament. Though the new arms trade between Turkey & Israel is not a joyful news and Perez is not convincing. Here is the poem, I would like to ask him if he thinks Palestinians don't;
I want a country
let the sky be blue, the bough green, the cornfield yellow
let it be a land of birds and flowers

I want a country
let there be no pain in the head, no yearning in the heart
let there be an end to brothers' quarrels

I want a country
let there be no rich and poor, no you and me
on winter days let everyone have hose and home

I want a country
let living be like loving from the heart
if there must be complaint, let it be of death..

Let's wait for more news. We all wish a country without any pains. Could any bombs falling any part of this planet bring anything else than more and more pain and chaos? Wish this can be a false news and my country can stay out of Middle East darkness...