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 US-led coalition against Islamic State, joining the front-line in the battle against the extremists 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.
It has made clear that its operations against Islamic State in Syria will not include air cover for Syrian Kurdish fighters also battling the extremists.
The chairman of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition HDP party, Selahattin Demirtas, whose lawmakers Erdogan wants to see prosecuted for alleged links to the PKK, called for an immediate halt to violence on both sides.
“We have to establish democratic pressure that will help silence the guns immediately. We are ready to work with all politicians who want to achieve this,” he told reporters.
Turkish officials have said the strikes against the PKK are a response to increased militant violence in recent weeks, including a series of targeted killings of police officers and soldiers blamed on the Kurdish militant group.
On Tuesday, fighter jets also bombed PKK targets in the southeastern Turkish province of Sirnak, bordering Iraq, after an attack on a group of gendarmes.
The PKK has said the strikes are an attempt to “crush” the Kurdish political movement and create an “authoritarian, hegemonic system” in Turkey.
It has stopped short of explicitly pulling out of a peace process, although it said on July 11 that Turkey’s construction of military outposts, dams and roads for military use had violated a ceasefire and that it planned to resume attacks.
