Turkey exercising self-defense against PKK — UN chief

Spokesman Tanju Bilgic told reporters a cabinet resolution to allow the use of the base by coalition aircraft “has matured”, meaning Incirlik “could be used any time, whenever needed”.

Similarly, the airstrikes conducted by Turkish force in Iraq seem to be nearly exclusively targeting Kurdish strongholds, not ISIS strategic targets.

Ban also offered condolences to the families of the victims and to the Turkish people.

“To be perfectly frank, I think Turkey is using the campaign against ISIS to go after the Kurds”, says Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based researcher with the Silk Road Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. “Kurds have witnessed betrayal for centuries” said Axin Bro, a musician. Everyone should justify their own actions.

Turkey began its most powerful airstrikes in Iraq since operations began on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reports, hitting at least six Kurdish targets in northern Iraq and organizing a special parliament session to discuss a continuation of this military operation. The official was not authorized to speak on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity. While deeming the group a terrorist organisation, Washington also depends heavily on allied Syrian Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State. That was before the PKK killed two policemen in Turkey and took credit for it, which the officials said was the reason Turkey struck the Kurds.

Of the 1,300 people the government rounded up in a nationwide anti-terror sweep, the overwhelming number has been Kurdish.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan, who has overseen the Turkish government’s efforts to settle its conflict with the PKK, accused the HDP of sacrificing the process in the name of its own political ambition. In the end, NATO’s need to keep Turkey in the fold as the alliance faces multiple threats to the south, the Middle East and in the east from an assertive Russian Federation, looks set to trump any other concerns.

The meeting came upon a request from the Turkish government.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ambassadors were said not to have been aware of Erdogan’s remarks, and they did not feature in the discussion. In contrast, police detained as many as 847 PKK suspects.

“There is no difference between PKK and Daesh“, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. How effective could ground operation be?

The HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas can see how a renewed guerrilla struggle with the PKK might suit Mr Erdogan and the AKP. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday it was “not possible to continue the [peace] process” with the Kurds as they were undermining the country’s national unity and integrity. The ruling party has until August. 24 to form a government before new elections are called.

These fears appear to have been strengthened by Mr Erdogan’s decision to rule out any dialogue with ethnic Kurd movements as “impossible”, and by his threat that any Turkish lawmaker who may have “links to terrorist groups” may be stripped of their parliamentary immunity and prosecuted.

“Dangerous rhetorics in Turkey against HDP, which won 6 million votes in last elections”. In a second incident in Sirnak province, suspected PKK rebels hurled a bomb at a military vehicle, wounding one soldier, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

But Kirby’s Turkish counterpart, Tanju Bilgic, said supporting the Kurdish militia was not part of the agreement.

In an earlier attack, Kurdish rebels opened fire late Wednesday on a tea house in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, killing a police officer and a civilian. The military responded with a counter-offensive that killed one PKK rebel.