The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said that its fragile truce with Turkish authorities had lost all meaning following Turkish warplanes attacked PKK camps in northern Iraq this week.
“The truce has no meaning anymore after these intense air strikes by the occupant Turkish army,” the PKK said in a statement July 25 on its website.
Fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, stand in formation in northern Iraq on May 14, 2013. (Photo: Azad Lashkari – Reuters)
Turkish authorities claimed that the strikes hit shelters, bunkers, caves, storage facilities, and “other logistical points” of the PKK in northern Iraq, including the Qandil Mountains, where the group’s military leadership is based, reported RFE/RL.
Following the air strike, a car bomb attack on a military convoy in the town of Lice in Diyarbakir killed two soldiers and injured four others, according to Turkish officials. The Turkish Army was quick to blame the PKK for the deadly bombing. On July 26, the Diyarbakir Police Department detained 21 suspects in a raid against the PKK. During the targeted operation, authorities seized guns and various documents belonging to the PKK, reported Turkey’s Today’s Zaman daily.
There has been much unrest in Turkey after a suicide bombing in Suruc last week that targeted members of the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) Youth Wing and the Socialist Youth Associations Federation (SGDF). The young activists were giving a press statement on the reconstruction of Kobane, Syria, when the bombing took place.
Four days following the attack in Suruc, two Turkish police officers were killed by the PKK’s military wing, which claimed the officers had collaborated with ISIS in the bombing.
Peace talks between the Turkish government and Kurdish leaders, which began in 2012, have suffered with the conflict in Syria and the rise of ISIS.
In late 2012, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed that Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) had been visiting imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to find a solution to the Kurdish-Turkish conflict. After months of negotiations with Turkish authorities, Ocalan called for a ceasefire that included disarmament and withdrawal from Turkey and calling an end to armed struggle. In September 2014, however, the PKK announced an end to the ceasefire in reaction to Turkey’s harsh treatment of Kurdish refugees caught in the Syrian civil war.
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