Crisis Meeting in Turkey

An ambush by Kurdish rebels was responsible for 17 Turkish soldiers' deaths Sunday. At least 32 Kurds are reported to have been killed in the clashes. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan called a crisis meeting to consider a military strike against rebel bases in Iraq.

The attack, one of the worst in more than a decade by rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), came four days after Turkey's parliament approved a motion to allow troops to enter northern Iraq to fight guerrillas hiding there.

"We are very angry," Erdogan told reporters. "Our parliament has granted us the authority to act and within this framework we will do whatever has to be done."

Cross-border military plans exist

Contrary to PKK claims of capturing several Turkish soldiers, Turkey's Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said no hostages were being held by Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

"There are no hostages," Gonul told the press after meeting in the Ukrainian capital with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Gonul also said Ankara had plans to cross the border into Iraq but would not do so immediately. The United States, European Union, NATO and Iraq have all called on Turkey not to conduct military actions in Iraq out of fear they could destabilize the most peaceful part of Iraq.

Considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, the PKK on Sunday claimed to have captured a group of Turkish soldiers in the volatile region on the Turkey-Iraq border following heavy clashes between the two sides.

"We cannot expect Turkey to remain silent in the face of attacks like these," Murat Yetkin, a commentator for the liberal Radikal daily told n-tv television. "This attack, coming on a day when Turkey votes in a referendum, is a very clear provocation. It shows the PKK is not interested in democratic initiatives."

Next president elected by popular vote

Seventy percent of Turks who voted in a referendum Sunday said "yes" to constitutional reforms that would make it possible to elect the country's president by popular vote, with two-thirds of the ballots counted, the High Electoral Board said.

The direct election proposal comes from the governing Islamic conservative AKP party. Several opposition parties had criticized the plans or called on voters to boycott the referendum. According to Turkish media reports, voting was light in some places.

The government has been urging a direct election of the president by the people after initially failing to get Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül elected president by the parliament.

Gül has in the interim finally been elected by the parliament and began his seven-year term in August. A proposed change in the constitution would also reduce the presidential term to five years.