PKK attacks forced Turkey to strike northern Iraq, says US

The Turkish Prime Minister stated on Monday that arrests had been made in 34 provinces across the country in the course of anti-terrorism operations targeting people suspected of belonging to ISIL, the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), and the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, a far-left group.

Once-reluctant Ankara then launched attacks against Daesh targets in Syria and Kurd positions in northern Iraq, despite the fact that Kurdish forces have won some of the biggest military successes against the extremists.

Stoltenberg said Turkey had not asked for military help – the alliance’s only Muslim member has the second largest armed forces in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation after the US – and he welcomed its increased effort against Daesh.

The PYD’s desire to clear Daesh from the region was “really a fundamental principle to U.S. and also to Turkey”, according the officials.

Protesters in the district had been demonstrating against Turkey’s air campaign against the PKK.

A transitional government based on the “Geneva Declaration” was essential to end the conflict in Syria, Erdogan added.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation also strongly backed Turkey’s fight against Daesh terrorists in Syria at emergency talks on Tuesday. On Friday night and in the early hours of Saturday, Turkish jets bombed PKK camps in northern Iraq for the first time in the last two-and-a-half years.

This was the latest incident in a series of escalatory retaliatory attacks between the PKK and the Turkish security forces since 23 July, when the separatist group shot dead two police officers in retaliation for the Islamic State suicide IED attack in Suruç. Turkish jets again hit PKK targets inside and outside Turkey on Sunday night and on Tuesday.