Turkish War Against ISIS & PKK | Page 4 | World Defense

Turkish War Against ISIS & PKK

BLACKEAGLE

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Turkish military denies hit civilians during air strikes
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The soldiers were deployed with the local Jandarma (Gendarmerie), a branch of the army which looks after internal security in Turkey. (File photo: Reuters)

By AFP and Reuters | Istanbul
Sunday, 2 August 2015

Turkey's military on Sunday denied allegations that it hit civilians in the village of Zargala during air strikes and said the target was a shelter for Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants.

"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 military said.

It added that an investigation regarding the village in question returned no findings of civilian residential areas within the impact range of the bombardment.

Earlier today, two Turkish soldiers were killed and 31 were wounded early on Sunday in a suicide bombing blamed on PKK militants that ripped through their local headquarters in eastern Turkey, reports said.

A suicide bomber drove a tractor laden with explosives up to the military station in the Dogubayazit district of the eastern Agri province, the official Anatolia news agency reported, quoting the local governor's office.

The soldiers were deployed with the local Jandarma (Gendarmerie), a branch of the army which looks after internal security in Turkey.

The attack was blamed on the PKK, which has stepped up attacks against the security forces in the last days as Turkish warplanes bomb its positions in northern Iraq.

In a separate incident also blamed on the PKK, one Turkish soldier was killed and four wounded early Sunday when a mine exploded as their convoy was travelling on a road in the Midyat district of the Mardin province in southeastern Turkey, Anatolia said.

The PKK's insurgency for greater rights and powers for Turkey's Kurdish minority has claimed tens of thousands of lives since it began more than 30 years ago. The current fighting has left a 2013 ceasefire in tatters.

According to an AFP toll, at least 17 members of the security forces have now been killed in attacks blamed on the PKK since the current crisis erupted last week.

The attack in Agri province is believed to be the first time the PKK is accused of deploying a suicide bomber in the current phase of the conflict, although it has used the tactic repeatedly in the past.

Ten suspected members of the PKK have also lost their lives in clashes during the current surge in tensions, according to Anatolia.

Last Update: Sunday, 2 August 2015 KSA 14:52 - GMT 11:52
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/08/02/Two-Turkish-soldiers-killed-24-wounded-in-PKK-suicide-attack-.html
 

BLACKEAGLE

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Turkish military denies hit civilians during air strikes
14689875-153a-4413-a5f9-079844cd5bdd_16x9_600x338.jpg

The soldiers were deployed with the local Jandarma (Gendarmerie), a branch of the army which looks after internal security in Turkey. (File photo: Reuters)

By AFP and Reuters | Istanbul
Sunday, 2 August 2015

Turkey's military on Sunday denied allegations that it hit civilians in the village of Zargala during air strikes and said the target was a shelter for Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants.

"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 military said.

It added that an investigation regarding the village in question returned no findings of civilian residential areas within the impact range of the bombardment.

Earlier today, two Turkish soldiers were killed and 31 were wounded early on Sunday in a suicide bombing blamed on PKK militants that ripped through their local headquarters in eastern Turkey, reports said.

A suicide bomber drove a tractor laden with explosives up to the military station in the Dogubayazit district of the eastern Agri province, the official Anatolia news agency reported, quoting the local governor's office.

The soldiers were deployed with the local Jandarma (Gendarmerie), a branch of the army which looks after internal security in Turkey.

The attack was blamed on the PKK, which has stepped up attacks against the security forces in the last days as Turkish warplanes bomb its positions in northern Iraq.

In a separate incident also blamed on the PKK, one Turkish soldier was killed and four wounded early Sunday when a mine exploded as their convoy was travelling on a road in the Midyat district of the Mardin province in southeastern Turkey, Anatolia said.

The PKK's insurgency for greater rights and powers for Turkey's Kurdish minority has claimed tens of thousands of lives since it began more than 30 years ago. The current fighting has left a 2013 ceasefire in tatters.

According to an AFP toll, at least 17 members of the security forces have now been killed in attacks blamed on the PKK since the current crisis erupted last week.

The attack in Agri province is believed to be the first time the PKK is accused of deploying a suicide bomber in the current phase of the conflict, although it has used the tactic repeatedly in the past.

Ten suspected members of the PKK have also lost their lives in clashes during the current surge in tensions, according to Anatolia.

Last Update: Sunday, 2 August 2015 KSA 14:52 - GMT 11:52
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/08/02/Two-Turkish-soldiers-killed-24-wounded-in-PKK-suicide-attack-.html
 

BLACKEAGLE

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Why Turkey called a NATO Article Four consultation

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ON TUESDAY representatives of each of NATO's 28 member states gathered at the organisation's headquarters in Brussels, at Turkey's behest, to address the security threats that country faces related to the Syrian civil war. Turkey says it wants its allies' support in combating recent attacks by the jihadists of Islamic State (IS) and by Kurdish militants. Its NATO allies are happy to support its fight against IS, but the battle against the Kurds is more complicated. NATO member states were forced to attend the meeting after Turkey invoked the North Atlantic Treaty's Article Four.

What is Article Four?

Most people are familiar with NATO's Article Five, which commits allies to come to the aid of any member suffering an armed attack. Article Four is less well-known. It says the member states will "consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security" of any member is threatened. In other words, any NATO member can call for a meeting regarding a threat to itself or any other member.

Are these sorts of consultations routine?

No. Article Four has been very seldom invoked; based on a British parliamentary document, this appears to be only the fifth such consultation since NATO was founded in 1949. (A NATO historian confirmed that Article Four consultations are extremely rare, but was unable to produce an exact figure.)

So this is a big deal.

We didn't say that. Article Four went neglected throughout the cold war, the most dangerous period of NATO's history. The first time it was called upon was in 2003, when Turkey invoked it to ask the allies for protection from Saddam Hussein during the American invasion of Iraq. Apart from last year, when Poland and Lithuania jointly requested an Article Four consultation after Russia's annexation of Crimea, Turkey seems to be the only country that has ever used it, and may be developing a bit of a habit.

Why is Turkey so keen on Article Four?

Turkey has always worried that other members of the NATO alliance do not take its security considerations seriously enough. Turkey has been a member since 1952, yet America has tended to see it more as a crucial strategic asset, first against the Soviet Union and later in conflicts in the Middle East, rather than as a full-fledged partner. When Turkey invoked Article Four in 2003, it was worried that the invasion of Iraq was threatening its own borders in ways that would be overlooked by the rest of NATO. NATO's agreement to deploy missiles and other assets for Turkey's defence was an important reassurance, and has been repeated during the Syrian civil war.

What is Turkey asking for now?

In the past two weeks, the fighting in Syria has spilled over into Turkey itself. First, an IS suicide bomber struck the border town of Suruc, killing 32 people, most of them volunteers planning to cross the border to provide aid to the Kurdish town of Kobane. Then militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have been fighting an on-and-off guerrilla war against the Turkish government for decades, violated a two-year-old cease-fire by killing several policemen. Turkey responded with air strikes, first against IS and then against PKK camps in northern Iraq. (The PKK retaliated in turn, with a car-bomb attack on a Turkish military convoy.) It also granted America and its other NATO allies permission to use its airbase at Incirlik to strike IS in Syria, which they have been seeking for over a year.

Turkey wants NATO to express support for its efforts to combat both IS and the PKK. But while NATO is pleased with Turkey's newfound eagerness to fight IS, it is hesitant about Turkey's aims towards the Kurds. America has a strong relationship with the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq and an increasingly strong one with another Kurdish militia in Syria, the People’s Defence Units (YPG), which battles IS. The YPG is closely allied with the PKK.

Furthermore, many believe that Turkey's Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is deliberately escalating the fight against the PKK in order to undermine popular support for Turkey's main pro-Kurdish political party, which drew many votes from secular Turks in the last elections in June. The long-ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, which Mr Erdogan co-founded, lost its majority in those elections and has failed to form a coalition, and Mr Erdogan may be planning to call snap elections. NATO is wary of such possible political motivations behind Turkey's fight with the Kurds.

Did Turkey get what it wanted out of the Article Four consultation?

Partly. In a statement, the NATO partners said they "strongly condemn the terrorist attacks against Turkey", and affirmed that "the security of the Alliance is indivisible". They placed their support for Turkey in the context of the international struggle against terrorism. America and other NATO allies consider both IS and the PKK to be terrorist organisations. But while the NATO statement specifically offers condolences to the families of the victims in Suruc, where IS staged its attack, it goes on to mention only "other attacks against police and military officers" rather than referring more clearly to the PKK's attacks. And it does not offer support for any particular actions undertaken by Turkey in response. Invoking Article Four has reminded everyone that Turkey is a NATO ally, but if Turkey wanted NATO's imprimatur for its war against the PKK, it does not seem to have got it.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/07/economist-explains-21?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/WhyTurkeyCalledANATOArticleFourConsultation
 

Sinan

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Turkey condemns Arab League’s statement on PKK operations

Turkey condemned and rejected a statement by the Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi on the Turkish military’s operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq.

A written statement by the Foreign Ministry cited PKK presence in northern Iraq and recalled that these hideouts are closed, despite cooperation efforts with Baghdad, with the group continuing to stage attacks against Turkey.

Ankara criticized al-Arabi for not raising its voice when the PKK “declared an autonomous canton in some parts of the Iraqi lands.”

The statement was not discussed among the member countries and solely reflects the views by the secretary general, said Turkey, in a statement released.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Ankara representative of the Arab League, Muhammed El Fettah Naciri, while expressing Turkey’s views on the matter, added the statement.

Qatar has broken ranks with the Arab League to give its close ally, Turkey, full support for air strikes in northern Iraq, according to another official Foreign Ministry statement.

On Aug. 4, the Arab League condemned Turkey’s actions and called on Ankara to recognize the sovereignty of Iraq.

The Arab League, which Qatar has been a member of since 1971, also called on Turkey and Iraq to increase cooperation in order to try and preserve peace.

In a statement released by Qatar’s official news agency late Aug. 5, however, Doha distanced itself from the Arab League declaration.

“The statement issued... on behalf of the Arab League was not discussed with the League member-states before it was released,” it read.

“Qatar reiterated its full solidarity with the Republic of Turkey for its actions and measures to protect its borders and preservation of its security and stability.”


Turkey condemns Arab League’s statement on PKK operations - DIPLOMACY
 

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Turkey condemns Arab League’s statement on PKK operations

Turkey condemned and rejected a statement by the Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi on the Turkish military’s operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq.

A written statement by the Foreign Ministry cited PKK presence in northern Iraq and recalled that these hideouts are closed, despite cooperation efforts with Baghdad, with the group continuing to stage attacks against Turkey.

Ankara criticized al-Arabi for not raising its voice when the PKK “declared an autonomous canton in some parts of the Iraqi lands.”

The statement was not discussed among the member countries and solely reflects the views by the secretary general, said Turkey, in a statement released.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Ankara representative of the Arab League, Muhammed El Fettah Naciri, while expressing Turkey’s views on the matter, added the statement.

Qatar has broken ranks with the Arab League to give its close ally, Turkey, full support for air strikes in northern Iraq, according to another official Foreign Ministry statement.

On Aug. 4, the Arab League condemned Turkey’s actions and called on Ankara to recognize the sovereignty of Iraq.

The Arab League, which Qatar has been a member of since 1971, also called on Turkey and Iraq to increase cooperation in order to try and preserve peace.

In a statement released by Qatar’s official news agency late Aug. 5, however, Doha distanced itself from the Arab League declaration.

“The statement issued... on behalf of the Arab League was not discussed with the League member-states before it was released,” it read.

“Qatar reiterated its full solidarity with the Republic of Turkey for its actions and measures to protect its borders and preservation of its security and stability.”


Turkey condemns Arab League’s statement on PKK operations - DIPLOMACY


The statement reflects the view of the secretary of the League however it doesn't represent the official stance of the country members as noted in the article you posted. “The statement issued... on behalf of the Arab League was not discussed with the League member-states before it was released,”. Who is the most powerful influential country in the Arab League after all? Saudi Arabia.

Saudi king backs Turkish military action

Riyadh: Saudi King Salman has expressed support for Turkey after it launched air strikes against Daesh in Syria and Kurdish militants in Iraq, state media reported on Tuesday.

The king told President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday that he backed Turkey’s right to self-defence, the official Saudi Press Agency said.

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.

The king condemned the attacks and said he “supports Turkey’s right to defend itself and protect its citizens from terrorist acts” which pose a threat to the security of the region and the world, SPA said.

Saudi Arabia is part of a US-led coalition that has been carrying out air strikes against Daesh in Syria since last September.

But Turkey had previously stood aloof, prompting accusations - strongly denied by Ankara - of complicity with the terrorists.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia have had strained relations since 2013 when Riyadh supported the overthrow by the Egyptian army of Ankara-backed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.

But SPA said the two leaders “emphasised the excellent relations” between their countries in their telephone call.

Saudi king backs Turkish military action | GulfNews.com
 

Sinan

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The statement reflects the view of the secretary of the League however it doesn't represent the official stance of the country members as noted in the article you posted. “The statement issued... on behalf of the Arab League was not discussed with the League member-states before it was released,”. Who is the most powerful influential country in the Arab League after all? Saudi Arabia.

Saudi king backs Turkish military action

Riyadh: Saudi King Salman has expressed support for Turkey after it launched air strikes against Daesh in Syria and Kurdish militants in Iraq, state media reported on Tuesday.

The king told President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday that he backed Turkey’s right to self-defence, the official Saudi Press Agency said.

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.

The king condemned the attacks and said he “supports Turkey’s right to defend itself and protect its citizens from terrorist acts” which pose a threat to the security of the region and the world, SPA said.

Saudi Arabia is part of a US-led coalition that has been carrying out air strikes against Daesh in Syria since last September.

But Turkey had previously stood aloof, prompting accusations - strongly denied by Ankara - of complicity with the terrorists.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia have had strained relations since 2013 when Riyadh supported the overthrow by the Egyptian army of Ankara-backed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.

But SPA said the two leaders “emphasised the excellent relations” between their countries in their telephone call.

Saudi king backs Turkish military action | GulfNews.com

Saudi, Turk, Qatari relations had been very good in the recent years. If Iran stops meddling in the ME and if we can link our countries via a Sunni state that would take place in the Levant, it would be wonderful.
 

Sinan

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Report coming as PKK members fled to Syria's Jazira region (PYD controlled). Estimated 1500 terrorists took shelter and Turkish army is preparing for a vast ground operation in Syria, targeting PKK members. (Surely, Turkish army will target YPG to if they show resistance.)

Also it is expected that operations against ISIS with US will begin simultaneously next week.

http://www.milliyet.com.tr/pkk-ya-dev-kara-harekati-geliyor-gundem-2097885/

 

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BLACKEAGLE

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Two killed in fresh clashes in southeast Turkey
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Turkish soldiers stand guard near the Mursitpinar border gate in Suruc, bordering with the northern Kurdish town of Kobani, in Sanliurfa province, Turkey. (File: Reuters)

By AFP, Istanbul
Friday, 7 August 2015

Two people have been killed in fresh clashes between Turkish police and Kurdish rebel supporters in the restive Kurdish-majority southeast, the local mayor said on Friday.

At least 10 people were also injured in the shooting that erupted overnight in the Silopi district of Sirnak near the border with Iraq and Syria, Silopi mayor Seyfettin Aydemir told AFP.

Two Kurds, one of them a teenager, died of gunshot wounds in hospital, Aydemir said, adding that the two of the injured were police officers.

Ankara has launched a two-pronged offensive to bomb Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants in Syria and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels in northern Iraq, after a series of attacks in Turkey.

So far, the operation has focused largely on the Kurdish rebels.

The spiral of violence sparked by the killing of 32 pro-Kurdish activists in a bombing by suspected ISIS jihadists last month has left a 2013 ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK in tatters.

According to an AFP toll, 20 members of the Turkish security forces have since died in attacks blamed on the PKK.

Last Update: Friday, 7 August 2015 KSA 20:58 - GMT 17:58
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/08/07/Two-killed-10-wounded-in-clashes-in-Turkey-s-southeast-.html
 

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Any update on the military operation guys?
 

BLACKEAGLE

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One killed after Kurdish rebels fire at Turkish police
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Protesters wave flags with the picture of PKK’s jailed leader Ocalan during a demonstration against the Turkish army operations on Kurdish militants, in central Brussels. (Reuters)

AP, Ankara
Sunday, 9 August 2015

Officials say Kurdish rebels have fired at a police vehicle in southern Turkey, killing a policeman and wounding another, in the latest attack against Turkish security forces.

The governor’s office for Mardin province said militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, opened fire late Saturday at the officers who were on patrol duty.

Militants also fired rockets at a military outpost in the southeastern Mus province. There were no casualties.

Violence in Turkey has flared in recent weeks, shattering an already fragile peace process between the PKK and the government. The rebels launch almost daily attacks at the Turkish security forces while Turkish jets have raided suspected PKK bases in northern Iraq.

The state-run Anadolu Agency claims that more than 260 PKK militants have been killed in the airstrikes.

Last Update: Sunday, 9 August 2015 KSA 16:58 - GMT 13:58
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/08/09/One-killed-after-Kurdish-repels-fire-at-Turkish-police-.html
 
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