Later on Saturday a police officer died after coming under attack by PKK militants as security forces were sealing trenches dug by the rebels in the Semdinli area of the southeastern Hakkari region, Dogan news agency said.
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“Of course there are messages, there are meetings, letters and they are likely to develop more”, he said. Since then, clashes between the two sides have led to the deaths of over 40,000 people.
Using the Incirlik base outside the city of Adana in southern Turkey drastically cuts the distance needed for the US jets to fly to northern Syria compared with other launch bases further afield in the Middle East.
“The government says he is OK but how can we know they’re not lying?”
Many analysts argue that the Kurdish moment has arrived in the Middle East. Kurdish fighters, operating with close U.S. air support in Iraq and Syria, have had some of the few big victories over the past year against the Islamic State.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s perspective is to move toward early elections later this year to reverse a blow his Justice and Development Party (AKP) suffered in elections in June.
The PKK has been designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union. But the PKK is also fighting Isil alongside coalition forces in both Iraq, in whose Qandil mountains it has its headquarters, and in Syria via its local branch there, the YPG. It also said it would create a non-Isil “safe zone” in northern Syria. In response, the PKK announced on its website that a truce with Ankara “has lost any sense”. Instead, a small Kurdish party, the HDP, stunned by winning 13% of the vote, tilting the balance and depriving the AKP from winning a majority for the first time since 2002. “Erdogan is taking a huge gamble”, said Jenkins, the Istanbul-based author, warning that the PKK could increasingly stage attacks in urban centres outside the largely Kurdish southeast, such as Monday’s bombing in Istanbul, or lose control of angry Kurdish youths altogether.
The Kurds are now coming under attack not only from ISIS but also from Turkey, a U.S. ally. The deadline for forming a governing coalition is August 23, though little progress seems to have been made as the Turkish government focuses on attacking the Kurds. The group recently discussed a peace treaty with the government but nothing was ever signed and talks quickly ended. That would have allowed him to push for constitutional changes to make the presidency, and himself, much more powerful.
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“And these are the Kurds”, Özdemir said.
