( AP )- Turkey's top general said the country's troop withdrawal from Iraq had nothing to do with U.S. calls to keep the cross-border campaign against Kurdish rebels as short as possible, a newspaper reported Saturday.
Gen. Yasar Buyukanit said withdrawal had already begun when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked on Thursday for a quick end to Turkey's military operation in northern Iraq against separatist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, Milliyet newspaper reported. Announcing the pullout then would have been a security risk, the general was quoted as saying.
Turkey withdrew is troops from northern Iraq on Friday, eight days after the military began a ground incursion to hit the rebels, who use their bases in northern Iraq as a launch pad for hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets.
"This decision (for withdrawal) was made due to military reasons only," Buyukanit was quoted as saying.
President George W. Bush had also asked Turks to "move, move quickly, achieve their objective and get out."
Turkey declined on Thursday to set a timetable for withdrawal, saying troops would pull out once the job was done.
Buyukanit said timing of the pullout was decided before Gates' arrival in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Wednesday, Milliyet reported.
He said troops had already started returning when Gates was in Ankara, the newspaper said.
"But announcing a withdrawal then would be a murder. Announcing withdrawal is equivalent of telling those terrorists there to set up their traps and ambushes," Milliyet quoted him as saying.
Turkey, a NATO-member, has long sought cooperation from Washington in its fight against the PKK, which it considers a terrorist organization. The U.S. and the European Union also consider the group as terrorist.
Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in November, when Washington agreed to share intelligence about the rebel group.
Turkey has launched a series of air assaults against PKK targets in Iraq since December, the first such operations since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The ground operation, launched on Feb. 21, was also the first of its kind that Turkey has conducted in almost a decade.
The PKK has waged a guerrilla war against Turkey since 1984, seeking self-rule for Kurds in southeastern Turkey. The fighting has claimed up to 40,000 lives.