PKK warns Turkey will pay ‘heavy price’ for offensive
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey: A senior figure in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Friday warned that Turkey would pay “a heavy price” for its offensive against the rebels amid new deadly clashes in the Kurdish-majority southeast.
A 40-year-old man was killed when he was caught in an armed clash between Turkish forces and the PKK in the city of Diyarbakir, security sources told AFP.
Four Turkish soldiers were also killed and six more were wounded in a clash with Kurdish militants in the southeasterly Hakkari province, security sources told Reuters.
A 29-year-old man was also wounded during clashes that erupted overnight after youths linked to the outlawed PKK opened fire at police trying to clear a main road blocked by the militants.
After a series of attacks in Turkey, Ankara has launched a two-pronged offensive to bomb ISIS militants in Syria and PKK rebels in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey.
So far, the operation has focused on the Kurdish rebels, who have responded by waging a bloody campaign against the security forces.
“We are waging a battle of the wills,” the PKK’s northern Iraq-based leader Murat Karayilan said.
“We are experienced and we know very well what to do. They made a very big mistake by attacking us ... They will pay a very heavy price for that.”
According to an AFP toll, 31 members of the Turkish security forces have since died in attacks blamed on the PKK.
But Karayilan, who is often seen as the movement’s overall leader in the absence its jailed iconic chief Abdullah Ocalan, said the PKK had not “put into effect a war plan yet.”
“Our fight continues in a planned and controlled way. We are just conducting retaliatory actions,” he said.
The PKK has waged a struggle for autonomy and greater rights in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast for over 30 years that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Meanwhile, more than 2,000 people took to the streets in Diyarbakir Friday to protest the escalating cycle of violence that has left a 2013 cease-fire agreed by the PKK in tatters, an AFP reporter said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Friday said his government would press on with its campaign against Kurdish militants, saying the operations were not “temporary.” “You shall not think they are strong ... They are doomed to fail,” Erdogan told supporters in his ancestral hometown in the Black Sea province of Rize.
More than 1,700 suspects have been arrested since late last month in police raids nationwide targeting suspected members of the PKK as well as ISIS and the Marxist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C), state-run Anatolia news agency said.
Friday police detained at least 39 suspected terrorists in raids in several cities including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, Anatolia said.
Karayilan meanwhile distanced the PKK from the July 22 killing of two Turkish policemen in their sleep, saying it was carried out “by a group not precisely affiliated to us.” He also said the PKK’s central command did not approve of suicide bombings, such as the attack in Istanbul Monday that was claimed by Kurdish militants.
Turkey’s nationalist opposition made clear Friday it would not roll over and back a minority government, making Erdogan’s aim of taking the country to a snap election with the ruling party in control look difficult. Talks on forming a grand coalition between the AK Party and the main opposition CHP broke down on Thursday, making an autumn election almost inevitable and leaving the ruling party having to turn to the nationalist MHP for support.
The lira currency hit a record low Friday and stocks were little recovered after sharp falls the previous session. The AKP failed to hold its majority in a general election on June 7, leaving it unable to govern alone for the first time since it came to power in 2002 and plunging Turkey into uncertainty not seen since the fragile coalitions of the 1990s.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu Thursday urged parliament to call for a new vote as soon as possible, apparently hoping for an agreement with the MHP that would allow his government to stay in power until the new election takes place. But the MHP said it had no interest in propping up an AKP minority administration.
“That would be a minority government. We would reject this,” MHP vice chairman Mevlut Karakaya told Reuters, saying that unless the AKP was prepared to accept nationalist conditions for a full coalition there was little point even negotiating.
PKK warns Turkey will pay ‘heavy price’ for offensive | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR
