ANKARA (AFP) – The Turkish army launched a ground offensive into northern Iraq to hunt down Kurdish rebels, drawing an angry response yesterday from Iraqi leaders and a call for restraint from Washington. With Iraqi leaders summoning Turkey’s charge d’affaires in Baghdad to protest against the operation, Turkish leaders were quick to give assurances about the nature and scope of the incursion. “The target, purpose, size and parameters of this operation are limited,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. “Our armed forces will come back in the shortest time possible as soon as they achieve their objectives.” Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki telephoned Erdogan after the latest incursion was launched to urge him of “the need to respect Iraqi sovereign authority,” Maliki’s spokesman said in Baghdad. The United States, which is supplying Turkey with intelligence on PKK movements, said it had been notified of the incursion beforehand and urged its NATO ally to exercise restraint. “We were notified and we urged the Turkish government to limit their operations to precise targeting of the PKK, to limit the scope and duration of their operations...,” said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

SOFIA (AFP) – Bulgaria’s center-left government easily survived yesterday a no-confidence motion fighting off opposition claims that it was failing to stamp out corruption. A total of 149 lawmakers of the 235 present in the 240-seat parliament rejected the motion, 86 supported it and there were no abstentions. The result was largely expected as the center-left coalition government holds a stable majority of 151 deputies in parliament. In order to succeed, the motion needed support from at least 121 deputies. But despite failing, the motion sparked eight-hour debates in the legislature on Thursday and a major street rally that gathered more than 5,000 protesters shouting “Resign!” outside the parliament building.

A UN war crimes court said yesterday that it had stayed a provisional release granted to former Bosnian Croat President Jadranko Prlic and four of his co-accused. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) had granted Prlic and the others provisional release from Thursday to May 4, but said yesterday the prosecution had appealed against the move. According to court documents, Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic and Valentin Coric were temporarily released on humanitarian grounds. In several decisions, the bad health of a parent of the suspect was mentioned as a reason. A sixth accused in the same trial, Berislav Pusic, did not ask to be provisionally released. (AFP)