By Ahmed Rasheed and Mohammed Abbas
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Turkey declined on Wednesday to giveBaghdad a timetable for the withdrawal of troops fightingKurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq, resisting pressure fromthe United States and other allies to end the offensivequickly.
"Our objective is clear, our mission is clear and there isno timetable until ... those terrorist bases are eliminated,"Turkish envoy Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference aftertalks in Baghdad with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.
Thousands of Turkish troops crossed the border on Thursdayto root out PKK fighters. The PKK has used remote mountainousnorthern Iraq as a base for their fight since the 1990s forself-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
Acting Iraqi Prime Minister Barham Saleh said a prolongedTurkish operation would lead to "dire" consequences for theregion and repeated Baghdad's demand that the incursion end.
"This would be highly destabilising, it's dangerous to thestability of Iraq and the region as a whole," Saleh, a Kurd,told Reuters on the sidelines of an economic conference.
"This is a very dangerous, precarious situation."
Turkey's military General Staff said another 77 KurdistanWorkers Party (PKK) rebels had been killed in heavy fightingsince Tuesday night, taking the death toll among the rebels to230 since Turkey's offensive began.
The United States and the European Union have expressedconcern over the incursion. U.S. Defence Secretary RobertGates, who is due to meet Turkish officials in Ankara onThursday, said Turkey must limit its operations to days ratherthan months.
"It's very important that the Turks make this operation asshort as possible and then leave, and to be mindful of Iraqisovereignty," Gates told reporters in New Delhi before leavingfor a previously scheduled trip to Ankara.
"I measure quick in terms of days, a week or two, somethinglike that. Not months."
WEATHER IMPROVING
The Turkish General Staff said in a statement that fivemore Turkish soldiers had been killed since late Tuesday,taking their losses to 24. PKK claims that more than 100Turkish troops have been killed could not be verified.
The Turkish statement said its forces had hit 475 newtargets, including shelters, anti-aircraft facilities, trainingbases and command centres. It also said the weather wasimproving after advances were slowed by heavy snow in theremote, mountainous region of Iraq's Kurdistan.
On Tuesday, Iraq condemned the incursion as a violation ofits sovereignty and, in its strongest comments so far, calledfor the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops.
Ankara says it is engaged in a legitimate fight againstwhat it and Washington describe as a terrorist organisation.
Gates' visit to Turkey was planned before the offensivebegan. U.S. defence officials considered cancelling the trip,but decided it was better to bring the Pentagon's messagedirectly to Ankara that Washington wanted the operation to beconcluded quickly, one senior U.S. defence official said.
The United States is providing significant intelligence toTurkey. If Ankara does not heed Washington's call to completethe operation quickly, Washington could curtail or cut off thatintelligence flow.
Davutoglu said the presence of the PKK in northern Iraqcould not be tolerated by Turkey, nor Iraq.
"For us, continuing operations is not a violation of Iraqisovereignty. It's just the opposite," Davutoglu said.
"It's the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty over thosegeographic areas (where) terrorists are functioning."
Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of nearly 40,000people since it began its armed struggle for self-rule inmainly Kurdish southeast Turkey in 1984.
Turkey says an estimated 3,000 PKK members have usednorthern Iraq as a base to stage cross-border attacks againstTurkish military and civilians.
(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Baghdad andKristin
Roberts in New Delhi; Writing by Paul Tait and Dean Yates;editing by Robert Woodward)
