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Two killed, 24 wounded in suicide bomber attack in eastern Turkey

The PKK and Turkey accuse each other of collaborating with the Islamic State. The explosives were detonated in an agricultural vehicle near the police station, leading to widespread damage to the building.

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Those who were injured had been taken to the hospitals, but there was no details provided on their condition.

At least 16 security force members were killed by the PKK in a separate incident on July 20 when a suicide attack by a suspected Islamic State (IS) militant killed 32 pro-Kurdish activists in the Suruc town of Sanliurfa province in southeastern Turkey.

Erdogan had telephoned Salman to brief him on the air strikes it launched last week after a deadly bombing inside Turkey blamed on Daesh and a reprisal killing of police by Kurdish militants. Barzani also condemned bombings by Turkish airplanes that had killed Kurdish civilians: “We condemn the bombing, which led to the martyrdom of the citizens of the Kurdish region, and we call on Turkey not to repeat the bombing of civilians”.

Iraq’s oil pipeline to Turkey is expected to resume pumping on Tuesday, Turkish energy officials have told Reuters, after sabotage by Kurdish militants halted crude flow last week.

There has been no statement from the Turkish authorities on claims of civilian casualties.

A wounded Iraqi Kurdish man receives treatment at a hospital in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on August 2, 2015, following air strikes by Turkish warplanes against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions in the Kurdish village of Zergale in the Qandil mountains, the PKK headquarters in northern Iraq.

However the PKK as well as other Kurdish fighters in Syria have gone after ISIS in Iraq for years, gaining major ground over the terrorists and even receiving air support from the U.S. A day earlier, more than 80 jets hit more than 100 targets in the operation in and outside Turkey belonging to the PKK. On July 27, the main Syrian Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), claimed that it had been shelled by Turkish troops.

This picture shows a general view of a Turkish millitary station covered by a tarpaulin after a suicide attack today in east Turkey town Dogubeyazit in Agri Province.

Safeen Dazai, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government, said in an interview that he did not know of any impact on the anti-ISIS effort in Syria so far as a result of the Turkish strikes in Iraq, denying any knowledge of the P.K.K. sending supplies or fighters from Iraq into Syria.

“Turkey realized that by not giving a stronger backing to the fight against ISIS it allows the PYD to expand its influence in the region, and Turkey did not like that”.

While Turkey’s belated turn from ignoring the threat from IS, not the least to itself too, in its blind zeal to unseat Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is welcome, the manner in which the campaign is being carried out raises some troubling questions.

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Information for this article was contributed by Ceylan Yeginsu, Anne Barnard, Falih Hassan and Omar al-Jawoshy of The New York Times; by Suzan Fraser of The Associated Press; and by David Lerman of Bloomberg News.

Two security forces killed 24 wounded in PKK attack in east Turkey