Turkey has just hosted an international conference on how best to stabilize Iraq despite being on an increasingly poor footing with its eastern neighbor. Ankara accuses Iraq of sheltering separatist Kurdish rebels and allowing them to carry out cross-border attacks against Turkey and has sent a clear warning it is ready to send its own army into northern Iraq to stop the rebel attacks. VOA's Sonja Pace reports from the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir on the underlying causes of the border tensions and what it means for both Turks and Kurds.

A Turkish Army patrol near the Iraqi border

Clashes between the army and the rebels have been on the rise, inside Turkey and along the border, but the conflict goes back decades. More than 30,000 people have been killed since the Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK, began its fight for Kurdish autonomy in 1984.

Ankara and Washington have declared the PKK a terrorist organization and many in Turkey agree.

But for others, like Azize Yigit, the PKK is simply fighting for the rights of the ethnic Kurdish minority.

Azize Yigit

Her younger son, Farouk, was killed within months after he joined. She has not heard from her other son, Mehmet, but clings to the belief that he is still alive somewhere in the mountains.

Azize Yigit and others like her banded together to form Mothers of Peace, an organization of women whose sons and daughters have gone off to fight, have died or gone to prison.

Hanim Pence

The women say they want to prevent another generation from dying.

Same conflict; more deaths. This time it's Turkish soldiers, police, and civil servants killed in the fight with the PKK.

Ahmet Buyukburc

This tank was displayed at a recent military parade in honor of Turkey's founding

When Turkey celebrated the 84th anniversary of the founding of the Republic, there were parades like this one throughout the country.

Towns were awash in a sea of Turkish flags. Yet, even in places like the small town of Diyarbakir in the southeast, it was the military show of might that received the most applause.

Emotions are mixed and running high on the PKK issue and there has been increasing pressure on the Turkish government to give the military the go ahead to get tough, despite calls for restraint from the United States and Europe.