Ankara seems to have directed most of its wrath against the Kurds, whose Syrian component, the YPG, is being assisted by the US for its heroic successes against IS, the retaking of Kobane being the prize in this crown.
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Erdogan said the zone’s creation would allow for the return of 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.
To that end, Erdoğan used the start of Turkish air strikes against ISIL forces in Syria to also attack members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist organization in northern Iraq.
Turkish officials in Ankara said the crackdown against the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, which also included hundreds of arrests across Turkey, was in response to increased violence carried out by the group over the past month.
The PKK has been fighting Turkey for an autonomous homeland for the Kurds.
There has been no comment from the PKK so far.
At least 260 Kurdish fighters have been killed and more than 400 militants wounded in the raids, claimed Ankara. The U.S. ambassador to Turkey should meet with Demirtas and express Washington’s continued support for concluding a peace process between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers Party.
“The PKK overestimated itself”.
The Turkish president frequently accuses the HDP of supporting the PKK, an accusation the party denies. Despite a power-sharing arrangement that the two parties agreed to after the US invasion of Iraq, the KDP and the PUK remain distrustful of each other.
In a separate incident also blamed on the PKK, one Turkish soldier was killed and seven were wounded when a mine exploded as their convoy was travelling on a road in the Midyat district of Mardin province in southeastern Turkey, the army said.
The Kurds, an ethnic group with their own language and customs, have long sought a homeland. But if the United States could stick by its Kurdish partners and chastise Erdogan’s recklessness, he might realize that he is the one who has finally overplayed his hand.
Third, the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq remains the most important of all the Kurdish factions.
The government has labelled its attacks on the PKK, alongside strikes on Isis fighters in Syria, a “synchronised fight against terror”.
In a recent article, Neil Quilliam and Jonathan Friedman, analysts with the London-based Chatham House research group, also said that Turkey has learned from the Iraq experience.
For three decades the PKK has been fighting for greater minority rights. “But in Syria, Sinjar and Qandil, the Barzanis and the PKK have an escalating rivalry. The utmost effort is always spent to avoid civilian casualties”.
Earlier on Saturday, some media outlets reported that several civilians were killed when Turkish fighter jets bombed a village located on the outskirts of Kandil Mountains.
“The continuous attacks and theft serve only to damage the economic viability and the security of the Kurdistan Region”, the statement added.
But now that Turkey is bombing the PKK it is foreseeable that the violence already engulfing the region could take on additional dimensions as divisions between Kudish factions deepen.
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In an interview with the AFP, Kifah Mahmud, a Barzani adviser, noted that “if the PKK did not have bases inside the region, Turkey would not be bombing civilians”.
