The news hit the headlines: Turkish army launched ground operation into North Iraq. Most articles quoted a Turkish General Staff statement. The PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) denied that troops had been crossing the border. And indeed today in a rather embarrassing move the Turkish General Staff released a statement saying that air force and ground operations launched are being carried out mainly within Turkey.

Blaming the media for misinterpreting the previous statement (published on Thursday) the Army clarified that “While the majority of air and ground operations are being carried out within the country, in the Çukurca region in particular, air and ground operations are also under way outside the border in a few regions”.

This is nothing new: indeed air strikes have been going on since last August and well into North Iraq.