Soldiers killed in suicide blast in eastern Turkey

In the same province, units of the Turkish antiterrorist police on Friday killed three alleged militants or PKK sympathizers during raids on their homes, two days after a soldier died when attackers fired a grenade launcher at an armored vehicle.

The Kurdish local authorities in northern Iraq earlier Saturday said the PKK should take the war with Ankara out of their region to prevent Turkish airstrikes from causing civilian casualties.

The Turkish President has already asked legislators to lift the party’s parliamentary immunity from prosecution, intimating that some of its leaders might have links with the PKK, the Turkish- and Western-designated terrorist group that Ankara is once more fighting against. At least 16 members of the security forces have been killed in attacks by the PKK since July 20.

Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan region on Saturday condemned Turkey’s bombardment of a village there which he said had killed civilians, and called for a return to the peace process. At least eight civilians were killed in the attacks, according to witnesses and the PKK-affiliated Firat news agency.

However, so far the majority of Turkey air bombardment has been on PKK targets. “Would the PKK be happy if a Kurdish political party inside Iraq meddled in the affairs of Diyarbakir or Mardin?”

The attacks come as the Istanbul neighborhood of Gazi, which has a large Kurdish population, continues to see violent near daily-protests between police and residents.

More fighters also crossed into the area from Turkey as part of the 2013 ceasefire. Turkey’s foreign ministry said on Saturday the strike on Zargala was targeting senior PKK commanders and accused PKK militants of using civilians as human shields. Islamic State militants have also targeted Turkish soldiers along Turkey’s border with Syria.

Turkey claims that around 260 Kurdish fighters have been killed since raids began last month.

The PKK’s insurgency for greater rights and powers for Turkey’s Kurdish minority, begun more than 30 years ago, has left tens of thousands dead.

Turkey’s global calling said the charges could possibly be reviewed in a location interrogative in the authorities of Iraq’s Kurdistan.

For now, the US has to find a way to strike a middle approach that will satisfy both the Syrian Kurds and an ever uneasy Erdogan – or else the anti-ISIS campaign may pay a steep price for US access to a single Turkish airbase.

The PKK did not claim responsibility for the attack, but if blame were proved it would mark a significant departure from the group’s usual tactics, which, unlike jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), eschew suicide bombings in favour of guerrilla-style warfare.