Speaking to the German Sunday paper “Bild am Sonntag”, von der Leyen said that just as Turkey had a justified right to defend itself against “IS”, it was “equally important for it not to leave the initiated path of reconciliation with the Kurdish Workers Party”.
Advertisement
“We will not hesitate to take necessary measures”. This attacks are still continuing.
The conflict in Syria has displaced more than 10 million people, with many residing in makeshift camps near the Turkish border. No one was injured in the attacks.
Simultaneously, Turkish land forces fired on Islamic State and the PKK, it said. Turkey also launched this week attacks against Daesh in Syria.
Turkey’s moves against the group could ease domestic concerns that attacking ISIS would empower Kurds in the region. It’s also formally been under a ceasefire with the Turkish government since 2013.
Later, clashes between Islamic State fighters and the Turkish military on the Turkey-Syria border left one soldier dead.
But ISIS isn’t Turkey’s only target.
This incensed Turkey’s Kurds who have long accused the government of actively colluding with ISIS, allegations Ankara categorically denies.
Turkey was partly driven by its fear that Kurdish factions were too closely aligned to Iran and that any change in Kurdish control of territory in Syria’s north would foster further instability within Turkey, said Akin Unver, an assistant professor of global relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, however.
The Turkish police also launched raids against purportedly IS but largely Kurdish militants across the country, arresting 297 people.
Turkey’s response is located in the context of two incidents.
“Two of our personnel were killed in the heinous attack, four were wounded”, said the statement, adding that large-scale operations have been launched to find the perpetrators.
Turkey has dramatically cranked up its role in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State since a suspected IS suicide bomber killed 32 people earlier this week in a town close to the Syrian border, while pledging to also target Kurdish militants. The area has seen pitched fighting as Kobani has acquired centre stage in the battle against the Islamic State, with international-coalition backed Kurdish militias taking on the sunni militant group.
Turkey told the United Nations that it had started conducting air strikes in Syria against Islamic State militants because the Syrian government was neither capable or willing to tackle the radical Islamist group.
Iran – allied with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad -decried the bombings and called for Turkey to respect national sovereignty. There was no official confirmation of the report.
Advertisement
Turkey had been reluctant to join U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State group. In his first public remarks since the deal was struck earlier this month, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that Iran’s relationship with its allies was “based on ideological grounds” which came before “political interests”.
