Turkish parliament adopted Tuesday a motion extending the mandate to launch cross-border military operations into north Iraq for another year, Xinhua reported.
Around 451 MPs joined the voting, 428 of them voted in favor and 18 voted against the motion. Only one MP abstained from the voting, while four votes were invalid.
The motion allows the Turkish government to stage cross-border operations to eradicate terrorism threat and attacks against Turkey from north Iraq.
The motion was first brought up to Turkish parliament in 2007, and has been extended for two times in 2008 and 2009 since then. This time the mandate will be extended for another year as of Oct. 17, 2010.
Listed as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government, the United States and the European Union, the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) took up arms in 1984 in order to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey.
Some 40,000 people have been killed in conflicts involving the PKK in the past over two decades.
Approximately 2,000 PKK members are deployed in Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq, where the Turkish army conducts operations from time to time, aided by the U.S. intelligence.
Turkey has recently intensified diplomatic efforts with Iraq and the United States to revive a trilateral action initiated this April to eliminate threat from the PKK, while the ruling Justice and Development Party has held talks with pro-Kurdish politicians and non-governmental organizations to boost its Kurdish initiative aimed at a non-military solution to the issue.