Turkey Strikes Regime Forces in Syria
Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist group, but its allies, including the United States, back the YPG, in its fight against so-called Islamic State (IS). Turkey has been battling the PKK for decades. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units or the YPG is based in Syria.
The co-leader of the PKK umbrella group, Cemil Bayık, said he did not know who was responsible but the Ankara attack could be a response to “massacres in Kurdistan”, referring to the Kurdish region covering parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
“This information will be given to all countries, primarily the five permanent members [of the United Nations Security Council]”, Mr Davutoglu said, once more underlining Turkey’s opposition to the YPG’s participation at UN-brokered Syria peace talks in Geneva.
Last week, Turkey ended a two month-long anti-PKK military campaign in Cizre, which according to Kurdish activists has cost the lives of dozens of civilians.
The fighting in south-eastern Turkey between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK, is getting worse, and it is merging with the increasingly hot war between Turkey and the Kurds of northern Syria.
The Turkish jets attacked PKK positions in northern Iraq’s Haftanin region, hitting the group of rebels which it said included a number of senior PKK leaders, the military said. Northern Iraq is home to the majority of that country’s Kurdish population.
Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose government holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said he hoped NATO’s announcement last week that it would start naval patrols in the Aegean Sea could make a difference. “Those who conducted the attack will probably announce why soon”.
“Our determination to respond in kind to attacks taking place inside and outside our borders is getting stronger with such acts”, Erdogan said in a statement.
“We have no link to these bombings and with what is happening inside Turkey”, he said, adding that any Turkish ground action in Syria will be confronted by a coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters. A large explosion, believed to have been caused by a bomb, injured several people in the Turkish capital on Wednesday, according to media reports…
The Turkish armed forces have continued to strike at Kurdish YPG militia detachments in the town of Azaz, northwestern Syria. The source added that the shelling came in response to cross-border fire. The vehicles were stopped at a traffic light, the military said. At least six army personnel were killed in the blast.
Syrian rebels have brought at least 2,000 reinforcements through Turkey in the past week to bolster the fight against Kurdish-led militias north of Aleppo, rebel sources said on Thursday.
“These reinforcements could contribute to stopping the fall of Azaz, but considering the Russian aerial support the YPG benefits from, I doubt that they will be pushed from most of the positions they captured in recent days”, he said.
Ankara has been angered with Western support for the YPG, and the political party affiliated with the YPG, the Democratic Union Party (PYD).