Turkey says it killed dozens of PKK fighters
December 20, 2015, 12:58 pm

Turkish forces have been on alert along the borders with Iraq and Syria since the violence which erupted last week [Xinhua]

The military said that its four-day operation involved up to 10,000 troops, backed by heavy armoured vehicles, tanks and air cover. It said two Turkish soldiers were killed in the campaign.

Although the PKK has fought Ankara for decades in a bid to carve out an independent state in southeastern Turkey, the violence has escalated in recent months.

PKK fighters have killed and wounded scores of Turkish soldiers and police. On November 13, two Turkish soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb in the restive province of Diyarbakir.

The PKK say they have killed over 150 soldiers; the Turkish military says it has killed over 1,000 PKK fighters in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to “obliterate” the PKK.

“This struggle will last there until comfort is provided. There is no stopping and it will continue with the same determination,” he said earlier this week.

Meanwhile, a number of Kurdish writers and politicians have called on both Ankara and the PKK to end their attacks for fear of an escalation into full-scale civil war.

Following a suicide bombing carried out by Islamic State militants at a peace rally, which killed 32 in Suruc near the Syrian border on July 20, Turkey won US and Nato support of retaliatory air strikes against ISIL positions in Syria and Iraq.

But the Turkish military also used this mandate to strike at positions held by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Last week, a diplomatic row between Iraq and Turkey erupted over the latter’s positioning of hundreds of Turkish troops near the ISIL-occupied city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

Turkey says its forces, who were already in northern Iraq to train Arab Sunni tribesmen and police against the Islamic State, are now training Kurdish Regional Government peshmerga forces outside Mosul.

Ankara has carried out dozens of military incursions into northern Iraq to pursue the PKK.

The PKK is not associated with the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government.

On Saturday, Ankara said it would relocate most of its troops from the forward base near Mosul, but did not provide details.

Iraq had threatened to take the question of Turkish troops in northern Iraq to the UN Security Council.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies