Posted on 07/29/2015 6:35:52 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
Turkish jets launched their heaviest assault on Kurdish militants in northern Iraq overnight since air strikes began last week, hours after President Tayyip Erdogan said a peace process had become impossible.
The strikes hit Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets including shelters, depots and caves in six areas, a statement from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's office said. A senior official told Reuters it was the biggest assault since the campaign started.
Iraq condemned the air strikes as a "dangerous escalation and an assault on Iraqi sovereignty", saying it was committed to ensuring militant attacks on Turkey were not carried out from within its territory.
Turkey launched near-simultaneous strikes against PKK camps in Iraq and Islamic State fighters in Syria last Friday, in what Davutoglu has called a "synchronised fight against terror".
The NATO member also opened up its air bases to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, joining the front-line in the battle against the jihadists after years of reluctance. NATO gave Turkey its full political support on Tuesday.
But Turkey's assaults on the PKK have so far been far heavier than its strikes against Islamic State, fuelling suspicions that its real agenda is keeping Kurdish political and territorial ambitions in check, something the government denies.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.reuters.com ...
Another way of saying killing Kurds?
Future Headline: President Calls for Emergency NATO Meeting to Address Turkey Aggression Against Kurds
Date: January 2017. Called by President Cruz
I wonder if the Kurds have any of Saddam’s old SCUDs hanging around?
“The NATO member also opened up its air bases to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, joining the front-line in the battle against the jihadists after years of reluctance. NATO gave Turkey its full political support on Tuesday. “
I guess it was the price of admission for NATO and Obama.
So thanks to Turkey we’re at war with the Kurds, the only entity effectively fighting ISIS?
I lived in Turkey for 6 yrs. The Turks have always hated the Kurds but the PKK are no choir boys either. Kurds, however, seem to have gotten the worst end of the deal.
Why this much love for the Marxist PKK? Let ISIS (Turkey) take care of commies (PKK), and vice versa.
Islamist Erdogan on Jihad against the Kafir, again.
I know, right.
PKK is harder to dismiss as just a group of Marxists/terrorists ....it’s become more complicated - they helped the Yazidis who fled to Mount Sinjar in Iraq to escape ISIS and have been fighting against ISIS in Syria.
Why is this posted in General/Chat and not in the News forum?
I’m never sure which stories are newsworthy and which stories are chatworthy. You can never go wrong with chat.
It’s a Zot free zone.
If it’s a Reuters article about Turkey & the Kurds, it’s news. The problem with posting a news piece in Chat, is that chat doesn’t allow the “topics” to choose from that News forum does - ie : foreign affairs, editorials, etc.
Also, it’s appreciated if you add some keywords when you post the thread so that people looking for threads on specific topic can search for it.
An imperfect analogy. ISIS are the Nazis. The PKK are the Soviets. You could say let them destroy each other, but there is a real risk that the stronger one will crush the weaker one. Bad news if the stronger one is the worser one.
In 1941 the Nazis were stronger than the Soviets. Today ISIS is stronger than the PKK.
President Cruz...Exactly
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