At least 260 Kurdish fighters have been killed and more than 400 militants wounded in the raids, claimed Ankara.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday furiously denied that his country was assisting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants, claiming that the group was damaging the reputation of Islam.
However, the ceasefire ended in effect when Turkey launched raids against Kurdish separatist camps in northern Iraq last month.
In a separate incident also blamed on the PKK, one Turkish soldier was killed and seven were wounded when a mine exploded as their convoy was travelling on a road in the Midyat district of the Mardin province in southeastern Turkey, the army said.
“All terrorist organizations that target Turkey must know that their acts will not go unpunished and that we will respond to their acts with full resolve, as we have every right to under worldwide law”, Mr. Davutoglu wrote.
Erdogan’s government has been attempting to negotiate a fragile peace process since 2012, and the AKP rode to power partly on its ability to capture segments the Kurdish vote.
“The targets in northern Iraq and inside Turkey are being identified by qualified personnel, based on confirmed visual data and as a result of a very meticulous and detailed study”, the Turkish military said of strikes on the Kurdish village, Al Arabiya reported. According to an AFP toll, 17 members of the Turkish security forces have since been killed on attacks blamed on the PKK.
The PKK, Barzani said in a statement released Saturday, “should withdraw its fighters from the Kurdish region so to ensure the civilians of Kurdistan do not become victim of that fighting and conflict”.
But regional president Massud Barzani said at the weekend it was time the group took its battle with Turkey elsewhere to avoid civilian casualties.
The PKK had been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. The Kurdistan Worker’s Party accused Turkish authorities of facilitating the attack.
The AKP and main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) were Monday holding a fifth and final day of talks on a possible grand coalition, but the press was downbeat about a deal.
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“The underlying strategy is to coerce the HDP to physically renounce what the PKK is doing”, Aaron Stein, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, told the Huffington Post. The U.S.-trained rebels, who number about 60, have pledged to fight only the Islamic State, not the Assad government, and Assad must focus on other threats to his regime, the official said. “We have done our work”. “That is what has been explained to me by Prime Minister Davutoglu”. Mr Mustafa said that at the burial the crowd chanted “Martyrs never die”, and: “There is no difference between Turkey and Isis”.
