Turkey Accuses BBC of ‘Openly Supporting Terrorism’

The Turkish government has censured the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for airing a report on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), saying the news organization is “overtly” supporting “terrorism”. Instead of allowing the Republican People’s Party to form its own coalition government, President Erdogan would rather hold fresh elections.

The blast came just hours after the first Turkish airstrikes on PKK targets along the border with Iraq in about a week. The BBC insists it has “clearly stated that the PKK is considered a terrorist organization by the Turkish authorities”.

The aim is “not to kill the PKK, not to decapitate it, not to provoke it into a full-scale war but to weaken it so it comes back to the negotiation table from a position of weakness”, Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute, told AFP.

Turkey’s Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutolgu, was in the capital Ankara as reports of the attack emerged.

In a press statement released Friday, Turkish Ambassador to Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the African Union Osman Yavuzalp said: “Over the past weeks, Turkey has witnessed a dramatic increase in terrorist attacks on its territory”.

But the recent PKK attacks, he said, were forcing him to reconsider reconciliation with the separatist group that Turkey has battled since the 1980s. “Promoting and glorifying terrorism is a crime”, the ministry said in the statement. If we are going to die, we will die once, but die like a man. Terrorists will lay down arms.

Tensions between Turkish security forces and the PKK increased following a suicide bombing attack on July 20 by the Islamic State (IS).

It said the PKK has killed more than 60 people and injured hundreds more in its new wave of attacks in southern Turkey.

The United States has long wanted to use Turkish bases for manned airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and parts of Iraq.