PKK claims deadly suicide attack on Turkish troops

Two Turkish soldiers were killed and dozens wounded Sunday in a suicide attack claimed by Kurdish militants, as Ankara kept up its air campaign against the rebels’ bases in northern Iraq.

The suicide attack was carried out with a tractor loaded with two tonnes of explosives on a gendarmerie outpost in the Dogubeyazit district of eastern Agri province, bordering Iran, the provincial governor’s office and the army said.

The current crisis began two weeks ago on July 20 when 32 young pro-Kurdish activists were killed in a Turkish town on the Syrian border in a suicide bombing blamed on IS.

But the office of the region’s president Massud Barzani said in a statement Saturday that the PKK rebels must “keep the battlefield away from the Kurdistan region” to prevent civilian casualties. Last month, the Turkish military engaged in its first cross-border confrontation with militants, while carrying out airstrikes on its targets in Syria.

Tension has increased in Turkey after a string of deadly attacks in the country.

Some 24 people have been killed in the renewed violence, majority soldiers.

The escalating conflict between the P.K.K. and Turkey has also roiled the neighboring Kurdistan region of Iraq, where officials said that renewed Turkish air strikes on the P.K.K. over the weekend had hit residential areas and caused civilian deaths.

Turkey’s moves are calculated at striking at the PKK while deepening the rift between Kurdish factions – something that could end up complicating or even harming the fight against ISIS.

Violence has flared up in Turkey in recent weeks as the government has cracked down on the PKK.

The PKK said in its statement the bombing was revenge for the air strike Saturday by Turkish war planes on the village of Zarkel (Zergele in Kurdish) in northern Iraq which Kurdish media say killed civilians but the army insisted was targeted at “terrorists”. The US has welcomed Turkey’s apparent jettisoning of its reluctance to act against IS, critics having accused Ankara of turning a blind eye to the dreaded terrorist group’s using Turkish soil to transition to Syria.

After the reproted agreement, Turkey struck against both ISIS in Syria and the Kurdish PKK stationed in northern Iraq.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s view that he considers PKK as serious a threat as Islamic State is not only wrong but also very risky and counter-productive; the Kurds, after all, have put up a good fight against IS and play a very important role in the war against the jihadists. Although PKK has renounced violence and does not want to carve out a Kurdish state out of Turkey, Erdogan seems to be anxious about the emergence of independent Kurdistan out of Kurdish territories in Iraq and Syria.

In 2012, the government and PKK began peace talks and the following year a ceasefire was agreed.

Meanwhile, police fired tear gas and used water cannons to disperse protesters in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey.