Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking at a political rally in Istanbul on Saturday, urged the parliament to vote unanimously next week to "declare a mobilization" against Kurdish rebels and their "terrorist organization," the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Fears of a new frontier of instability in the troubled Middle East sent oil prices soaring Friday to a record high of $84 a barrel. U.S. military officials predicted disastrous consequences if Turkey carries out a threat to strike northern Iraq, and they warned of serious repercussions for the safety of American troops if Turkey reduces supply lines in response to a congressional vote last week on the killing of Armenians nine decades ago.

The confluence of two seemingly unrelated events could not have come at a worse time. Thirteen soldiers killed last weekend in Turkey in the most deadly attack by Kurdish separatists in more than a decade had barely been buried when the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington approved a resolution labelling as genocide the mass killings of Armenians during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey does not deny the deaths but argues that they occurred as part of a war in which Turks were also killed.

US Urges Turkish Restraint On Kurds