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Turkey launches heaviest air strikes yet on PKK
Wednesday, 29 July, 2015
Turkish jets launched their heaviest assault on PKK in northern Iraq overnight since air strikes began last week, hours after President Tayyip Erdogan said a peace process had become impossible.
The strikes hit six Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets including shelters, depots and caves, a statement from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s office said. A senior official told Reuters it was the biggest assault since the campaign started.
Turkey launched near-simultaneous strikes against PKK camps in Iraq and Islamic State fighters in Syria last Friday, in what Davutoglu has called a “synchronized fight against terror”.
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 southeastern Turkish province of Sirnak, bordering Iraq, after an attack on a group of gendarmes.
The PKK has said the strikes are an attempt to “crush” the Kurdish political movement and create an “authoritarian, hegemonic system” in Turkey. But it has so far stopped short of explicitly pulling out of a peace process with the state./End/
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Wednesday, 29 July, 2015
Turkish jets launched their heaviest assault on PKK in northern Iraq overnight since air strikes began last week, hours after President Tayyip Erdogan said a peace process had become impossible.
The strikes hit six Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets including shelters, depots and caves, a statement from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s office said. A senior official told Reuters it was the biggest assault since the campaign started.
Turkey launched near-simultaneous strikes against PKK camps in Iraq and Islamic State fighters in Syria last Friday, in what Davutoglu has called a “synchronized fight against terror”.
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 southeastern Turkish province of Sirnak, bordering Iraq, after an attack on a group of gendarmes.
The PKK has said the strikes are an attempt to “crush” the Kurdish political movement and create an “authoritarian, hegemonic system” in Turkey. But it has so far stopped short of explicitly pulling out of a peace process with the state./End/
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