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 Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria.
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Erdogan also claimed that U.S. President Barack Obama had pleaded with him for Turkey to help prevent the fall of the mainly Kurdish Syrian town of Kobane to Islamic State jihadists in 2014. It claimed responsibility for a 2013 suicide attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, which killed a Turkish security guard.
Anadolu named the captured assailant as 42-year-old Hatice Asik and said she is a member of the far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front, or DHKP-C. “A member of the occupying forces has been punished in the suicide attack“, it said, vowing the attacks would continue.
“Police were shouting “drop your bag, drop your bag”.
Yuksek said police demanded that the women, who were carrying bags, surrender, but one of them replied, “I will never surrender to you”.
Two Turkish F-16s then Tuesday afternoon destroyed PKK targets in Sirnak province, the army said. The account could not immediately be verified.
Brett McGurk, deputy US envoy for the anti-IS coalition, wrote on Twitter that he was back in Ankara for talks with Turkish officials “to advance our joint cooperation” against IS militants. The consulate would remain closed to the public until further notice, it said.
By largely focusing on the PKK – both in Iraq and at home – Ankara has raised suspicions among Kurds that its real agenda is to check Kurdish territorial ambitions rather than battle hardline Islamists. The bomb attack at the police station injured three policemen and seven civilians and caused a fire that collapsed part of the three-story building.
Turkish special police officers patrol in the street after clashes with attackers on Monday in the Sultanbeyli district of Istanbul.
The Turkish air force launched Tuesday a string of overnight air strikes against Kurdish militants in the southeast of the country.
It has been a high-risk strategy for a country straddling Europe and the Middle East which depends on tourism for around a tenth of its income, leaving it exposed to the threat of reprisals.
At least 21 people, mostly security forces, have been killed in 11 days of attacks and clashes in Turkey.
In new violence overnight, a Turkish soldier was killed in a gun attack on a military post in Sirnak, also blamed on the PKK.
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The PKK confirmed his death in a statement, saying he had been killed in an attack by a helicopter gunship during an operation in Hakkari, on the border with Iran and Iraq.
