Two soldiers killed in Turkey as PKK truce teeters

ISTANBUL, Turkey – A car bomb attack killed two Turkish soldiers in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of the country, after separatist rebels warned they would no longer observe a truce after Ankara’s air strikes on their positions in Iraq, officials said Sunday, July 26.

Turkey has launched a two-pronged “anti-terror” cross-border offensive against Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants after a wave of violence in the country, pounding their positions with air strikes and artillery.

But the expansion of the campaign to include not just ISIS targets in Syria but PKK rebels in neighboring northern Iraq bitterly opposed to the jihadists has put in jeopardy a truce with the Kurdish militants that has largely held since 2013.

The PKK on Saturday, July 25, said that the conditions were no longer in place to observe the ceasefire, following the heaviest Turkish air strikes on its positions in northern Iraq since August 2011.

The car bomb went off as the soldiers were traveling on a road in the Lice district of Diyarbakir province late Saturday, the statement from the local governor’s office said.

“Two of our personnel were killed in the heinous attack, 4 were wounded,” said the statement, adding that large-scale operations have been launched to find the perpetrators. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

‘Ceasefire over’

The PKK has for decades waged a deadly insurgency in the southeast of Turkey for self-rule that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. A peace process that began in 2013 has so far failed to yield a final deal.

“The ceasefire appears to be over,” said David Romano, Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University in emailed comments, arguing that the main focus of the Turkish military campaign was the PKK rather than ISIS.

Turkish armed forces on Saturday pressed on with a new wave of strikes against ISIS and PKK targets, but there were no reports of new air raids overnight.

The military wing of the PKK said in a statement that one PKK fighter in northern Iraq – named as Onder Aslan – was killed in air strikes overnight Friday, July 24, to Saturday and 3 others wounded.

The president of the Kurdish-ruled autonomous region in northern Iraq, Massud Barzani, expressed “displeasure with the dangerous level the situation has reached,” his office said.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu ordered the launch of campaign after a week of violence in Turkey which began on Monday with a suicide bombing blamed on ISIS in a town close to the Syrian border that killed 32.

This incensed Turkey’s Kurds who have long accused the government of actively colluding with ISIS, allegations Ankara categorically denies.

Two Turkish policeman were shot dead Wednesday while sleeping in their homes in the southeast, in murders claimed by the PKK.

The violence has fanned fears that the conflict in Syria’s civil war between ISIS and Kurdish militias allied to the PKK is spilling into Turkish territory.

With Turkey still without a permanent government after a June 7 election resulted in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) losing its overall majority for the first time since 2002, parliament has been summoned to meet on Wednesday, July 29, to discuss the security situation.

Protests shake Turkey

Tensions across the country are high, with police routinely using water cannon to disperse nightly protests in Istanbul and other cities denouncing ISIS and the government’s policies on Syria.

Police violently dispersed a demonstration in Ankara late Saturday, using water cannon and making dozens of arrests.

The Istanbul authorities banned a planned anti-jihadist “peace march” scheduled to take place in Istanbul on Sunday, citing security and traffic congestion.

Turkish security forces have also been rounding up hundreds of suspected members of ISIS, the PKK and other militant groups on the grounds they pose a threat to the state.

A total of 590 people have so far been arrested, Davutoglu said.

One of those held in Istanbul was a senior ISIS manager in charge of foreign recruits in the city, named as Abdullah Abdullayev, a Russian from the North Caucasus region of Dagestan, the Anatolia news agency said. – Stuart Williams, AFP / Rappler.com