Turkey intensifies campaigns in Iraq and Syria

26/07/2015| IslamWeb

Turkey has launched more air raids against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria and against Kurdish fighters in Iraq.

Saturday's raids are the latest in a campaign that began early on Friday in response to a suicide bombing at a rally in the southern Turkish city of Suruc earlier in the week that killed dozens of Kurdish activists.

Turkey's targets included seven bases in northern Iraq belonging to the PKK, whose Syrian allies are fighting against ISIL.

Turkish officials appeared to be prepared for a long-term fight.

"Whenever we see a decrease in or the vanishing of the threat, then of course we will make a reassessment," Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister, said at a news conference.

"A third wave of operations are a part of this."

'Dangerous'

The PKK said the strikes on its bases meant the Turkish government had ended a fragile 2013 ceasefire between the two sides.

The president of Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) Masoud Barzani, spoke to Davutoglu over the telephone on Saturday and "expressed his displeasure with the dangerous level the situation has reached", according to a KRG statement.

"He requested that the issue not be escalated to that level because peace is the only way to solve problems and years of negotiations are better than one hour of war," the statement said.

"Mr Barzani is ready to do anything within his means to assuage this tension and go back to a situation of peace."

In a related development, Turkish police have been rounding up hundreds of suspected ISIL and Kurdish fighters in cities and towns across the country. As of Saturday, nearly 600 people had been detained.

Turkish police fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse about 1,000 demonstrators who had gathered in the capital Ankara to protest against the military strikes.

Peace talks between the PKK and Turkey had started in 2012 but have stalled of late.

"The truce has no meaning any more after these intense air strikes by the occupant Turkish army," the PKK said on its website.

Bahtiyar Dogan, a PKK spokesperson in Iraq, told AFP news agency that one fighter was killed and three wounded in the air strikes, which he said started late on Friday and lasted through much of Saturday.

"We are still committed to the directives of our leader [Abdullah] Ocalan ... but it seems Erdogan wants to drag us back into war," Dogan said.

"When things reach this level and when all of our areas are bombed, I think by then the ceasefire has no meaning any more," he said, echoing the statement on the PKK website.

Turkey earlier this week approved the full use of its airbases by the US-led coalition against ISIL and has been pushing for areas in northern Syria cleared of ISIL fighters to become safe zones.

Turkish fighter jets on Friday morning began pounding ISIL targets in Syria, before following up with raids on PKK positions in Iraq.

The raids were in response to the suicide bombing in Suruc claimed by ISIL that killed 32 young Kurdish activists who were about to deliver aid to Syria's mainly Kurdish town of Kobane.

The PKK responded by killing two Turkish police officers, claiming they collaborated with ISIL in the bombing.

 

PHOTO CAPTION

 

Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (C) chairs a security meeting in Ankara, Turkey, in this July 25, 2015 handout provided by Turkey's Prime Minister's Press Office.

 

Aljazeera