Turkey should take a step back from its fight with the PKK, even as it takes a step forward in the bigger war with ISIL.
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Among them were a soldier and four police officers who were killed in two separate attacks in Sirnak, which borders Iraq.
Three Turks were killed on Tuesday when Kurdish fighters attacked a military outpost in southeastern Turkey, the Turkish military said.
And overnight, there were more shoot-outs between Turkish forces and militants in three other cities.
Turkey’s latest horror show started on July 20th when an ISIS suicide bomber killed 32 youth activists and injured another 104 in the Turkish town of Suruç.
Turkish forces also are targeting Islamic State militants across the border in Syria. This has fueled enormous tension between the Turkish government and Kurds in general, and with the US suddenly welcome at Turkish airbases, they risk losing their alliance with those same Kurds. “So there is close coordination between them and the last thing the US wants is a flare up or conflagration between Turkey and the PKK”.
Although this two-pronged military strategy is also supposed to help in the fight against “Islamic State” (IS), terrorists, most of the targets have been in northern Iraq, the heartland of the Kurdish population there. The armed forces retaliated, said the military.
Turkey, like a number of Western countries, considers the PKK a terrorist organisation.
The Dogan news agency said the woman was aged 51 and had served prison time for being a suspected member of the far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), which is virulently anti-American and is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey.
10, 2015, the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey announced its closure to the public following a security incident involving two gunmen that morning.
In addition, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the militia of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which is linked to the PKK, has been seen as one of the most effective and reliable forces fighting IS in Syria.
Turkey could face another election later this autumn if the AK Party which he founded is unable to form a coalition after losing its majority.
“Erdogan views the pro-Kurdish HDP as the main barrier to his aims of amending the constitution to bring about a powerful executive presidential system of government”, says Fadi Hakura, a Turkey analyst at the London-based Chatham House think tank.
Meanwhile, Turkish planes are unilaterally hitting PKK bases near the border with Turkey.
The attack on the U.S. consulate came hot on the heels of Washington’s sending of six F-16 fighter jets to a Turkish airbase in the south, following months of U.S. pressure on Turkey to allow the coalition to use its airbases.
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The audacious assault by gunmen able to evade police detection underscores a shift by the autonomy-seeking Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
