A ceasefire in the long-running conflict with the group appeared to disintegrate in July, when Turkey began bombing PKK camps in northern Iraq, at the same time as launching air strikes on IS militants.
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Anadolu said 24 security force members had been killed in attacks in the last month, and 12 PKK rebels killed in clashes.
The provincial governor’s office in Silopi said PKK militants had dug trenches and erected barricades across the town and then attacked security forces with rockets, handmade explosives and rifles.
“The member states are fully aware that the Turkish priority is an attack on the Kurds – to be more specific, the prevention of a contiguous Kurdish entity in northern Syria”, Seckin told AFP.
Washington’s first priority here should be to preserve its constructive alliances with Kurdish groups in the fight against Islamic State.
Turkey also launched airstrikes against ISIL and the PKK in Syria and Iraq. “This is something that is discussed on a bilateral basis between Turkey and the United States“. While they need the Iranians to cooperate in Iraq to stabilise the government against the threat of IS, all their regional allies – Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey – are aligned either with IS or the al Qaeda affiliates in Syria and Yemen.
Turkey’s Kurdish political leader Selahattin Demirtas made an unannounced visit to Brussels, Belgium, where he “asked the EU to push clearly for a truce”.
“The EU acknowledges that Turkey has the right to prevent and react to any form of terrorism, which must be unequivocally condemned”, he said, without citing the PKK or any Kurdish group by name.
He said people like Aydar can “indirectly” transmit to the PKK the HDP message that the parties in conflict must return to the negotiating table.
DAYS ago, the Peace in Kurdistan Campaign’s website was blocked to users in Turkey in the latest government crackdown on Kurdish and pro-Kurdish news and media.
Amongst their ranks, many consider the PKK to have been most effective. “So they may have felt it necessary to help us bomb ISIS so as to justify them bombing the enemies of ISIS“.
Activists suspect the accuracy of the U.S.-led coalition in selecting reliable rebel factions to run this safe zone, as most of opposition-linked armed groups are led by strict Islamists. Kurds, just as others, realise that the Davutoglu government is a caretaker government that is unable to take major decisions or make new legislations relating to the peace process. The air-strikes against PKK bases in Mount Qandil in Iraqi Kurdistan were a prompt response from the Turkish military.
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Five people including a Turkish soldier died and several others were injured in clashes in Turkey’s restive Kurdish-majority southeast, officials said Friday, as violence raged between Kurdish militants and security forces.
