The strikes hit Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets including shelters, depots and caves in six areas, a statement from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s office said.
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In Iraq, which is fighting to regain large areas from Islamic State extremists, the government declared the Turkish attack on the PKK in Iraqi territory “a unsafe escalation and an offense to Iraqi sovereignty”.
ON TUESDAY representatives of each of NATO’s 28 member states gathered at the organisation’s headquarters in Brussels, at Turkey’s behest, to address the security threats that country faces related to the Syrian civil war.
In a dizzying array of alliances, Obama has been pleading with Turkey for almost a year to fight the Islamic State more aggressively and allow the U.S. military to launch airstrikes from its Incirlik air base.
“The cabinet has signed the decree”, the official told AFP, without specifying when the authorisation was given. The Americans have long coveted the use of the Incirlik air base whose vast size and key strategic location makes any air operations throughout the Middle East far easier.
After months of reluctance, Turkish warplanes last week started striking militant targets in Syria and agreed to allow the U.S.to launch its own strikes from Turkey’s strategically located Incirlik Air Base.
The North Atlantic Council, the political decision-making body of the NATO, met at Turkey’s request to hold consultations under Article 4 of the Washington Treaty, which states that “the parties will consult whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence, or security of any of the parties is threatened”.
The conclusion is hard to avoid: Erdogan’s war on terror is ensnaring not just Islamic State militants but also an opposition party he’s eager to see returned to the fringes of Turkish politics. The prosecutor petitioned parliament a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a call for prosecutors to act against Kurdish party leaders for alleged links to the outlawed PKK. “We have to establish democratic pressure that will help silence the guns immediately”.
“It is not possible for us to continue the peace process with those who threaten our national unity and brotherhood”, Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara before departing on an official visit to China.
Turkish officials have said the strikes against the PKK are a response to increased militant violence in recent weeks, including a series of targeted killings of police officers and soldiers blamed on the Kurdish militant group.
On Tuesday, fighter jets also bombed PKK targets in the south-eastern Turkish province of Şırnak, bordering Iraq, after an attack on a group of gendarmes.
At least twelve members of the security forces have been killed over the past week by suspected Kurdish militants. Ankara is opposed to a Kurdish autonomous region in Syria, fearing that it could spread to include southeastern Turkey.
It has stopped short of explicitly pulling out of a peace process, although it said on July 11 that Turkey’s construction of military outposts, dams and roads for the armed forces’ use had violated a ceasefire and that it planned to resume attacks.
Erdoğan initiated negotiations in 2012 to try to end a PKK insurgency, largely fought in the predominantly-Kurdish southeast, that has killed 40,000 people since 1984.
He called on the Turkish Parliament to strip politicians who have links to terrorist organizations of their immunity from prosecution – apparently referring to the HDP, which a few members of the government consider the political wing of the PKK.
“Our only crime is to win 13 percent of the vote”, Demirtas said, saying one of the main objectives of the campaign was to “harm” the HDP.
“It is unclear how the process will continue”.
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Many Kurds believe that by reviving conflict with the PKK, Erdogan seeks to undermine support for the HDP ahead of a possible early election. The Haci Bayram district was the focus of media attention last year because a few Turkish IS recruits came from the neighbourhood. “He knows that if a coalition is formed whatever remains from his executive presidency dream will completely be destroyed”, said Idris Baluken, a senior HDP lawmaker. “Instead, Turkey now participates in a triangular war and it looks like there is no quick route to peace again”.
