Turkey attacks Kurdish villages - no different from ISIS

[Anthea]

Reuters

Two soldiers killed, 31 wounded in PKK suicide attack in east Turkey

The Turkish army said two of its soldiers were killed and 31 wounded in an attack overnight by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), as violence escalated following Ankara's air bombardment of Kurdish militants 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.

Four of the soldiers injured in the attack in which PKK militants also used rifles were in serious condition, the army said.

Another soldier was killed in Turkey's southeastern province of Mardin when a unit on patrol was attacked by the PKK late on Saturday night, the army said. Seven soldiers were also wounded in the incident.

Armed attacks by PKK militants in southeastern Turkey have increased since mid-July, much more so since Turkey began a campaign of air strikes on PKK camps in northern Iraq on July 24.

In what prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu has called a "synchronized fight against terror", Ankara has granted access of its bases to the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State, however so far the majority of Turkey's air bombardment has been on PKK targets.

Turkish officials have said the strikes against the PKK are a response to increased violence. Sunday's attacks have brought the number of security forces killed in attacks blamed on the PKK to at least sixteen, 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.

Link to Full Article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/ ... 2W20150802

[Anthea]

Independent

Kurdish villagers under fire in PKK-controlled Iraq say Turkey is 'no different from Isis'

Kurdish resistance groups are under attack from air strikes in northern Iraq - and in the Makhmour refugee camp, locals claim that the Turkish military is even more bloody than the militant group

For the Turkish Kurds in northern Iraq, the bombing raids, abandoned villages and innocent lives lost are all-too-familiar tragedies.

On the outskirts of the Iraqi town of Makhmour on Sunday, two Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) soldiers stood guard outside a camp which has, over the years, twice become a ramshackle village of 12,000 refugees. It has provided sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan for Turkish Kurds who fled the worst days of Turkey’s internal conflict in the 1990s.

In the summer, the jihadists of Isis overran the camp – a warren of mud and stone houses. They were eventually ousted by Kurdish Peshmerga and PKK fighters, supported by US-led coalition air strikes.

Now, Kurds are again forced to flee, this time in the mountain villages under attack from Turkey’s air force. Images shared on social media over the weekend revealed the aftermath of one Turkish air strike on Zargali, around 80 miles away from Makhmour in northern Iraq. They show a man standing in ruins of a home. The floor is littered with broken cement blocks and a blanket barely conceals the burnt body of a woman.

Witnesses said that at least five villagers were killed in Zargali by Turkish jets targeting rebels from the PKK, whose bitter insurgency in Turkey for Kurdish rights has been reignited in recent days after a two-year ceasefire.

Link to Full Article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 33995.html

[Azadi]

Barzani condemned the bombing? Any source?

[Piling]

Barzani 1/ condemned all Turkish bombings, 2/ praised negociations 3/ and asked also to PKK to leave KRG. Most of his statements can be found, for example on the official website of Kurdish Presidency (for the 2 first points) :

http://www.presidency.krd/english/artic ... jyOJzCxGs=

I can't find the last point of KRP site but it is published by many news websites.

[Azadi]

And the second point is an obscured lie at best, since this village was used when KRG, Turkey and PKK negotiated to release 5-6 Turkish citizens some years back. Main point of this village being used was that it was a rather good distance away from PKK camps, but also not too close to KRG entrenchments. Thanks for the link btw.