Twelve Turkish police officers have been killed in a bomb attack in the east of the country blamed on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) as violence in the south-east threatened to spiral out of control and Ankara launched a massive wave of airstrikes against rebel strongholds in northern Iraq..
The attack targeted a minibus carrying officers working in the Igdir region of eastern Turkey at the Dilucu gate marking the border with Azerbaijan, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
This is the second deadliest attack of the current flare-up in unrest after 16 Turkish soldiers were killed at the weekend in the Kurdish-dominated south-east.
The prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, has vowed to “wipe out” PKK militants from the mountains of eastern Turkey following the deaths.
Ahmet Davutoğlu has vowed to ‘wipe out’ PKK militants in eastern Turkey. Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Ahmet Davutoğlu has vowed to ‘wipe out’ PKK militants in eastern Turkey. Photograph: STR/EPA
The PKK, known for sometimes exaggerating the death tolls of its attacks, said 31 Turkish soldiers had been killed in Sunday’s gun and bomb attack in Dağlıca.
Turkey has staged airstrikes and ground operations against the PKK in its strongholds of south-eastern Turkey and northern Iraq in a bid to destroy it.
But the PKK has hit back, killing dozens of Turkish police and soldiers in almost daily attacks, marking a new intensification of the conflict.
In response to the Dağlıca attack, Turkish warplanes launched a massive air operation early on Tuesday in northern Iraq. More than 50 Turkish jets were involved in the six-hour raid, killing “35 to 40 terrorists according to preliminary findings”, Anatolia said.
“These terrorists must be wiped out from the mountains,” Davutoğlu said on Monday. “The mountains of this country, the plains, highlands, cities, will be not abandoned to terrorists,” he said.
The violence has left in tatters a 2013 ceasefire aimed at allowing a final peace deal to end the PKK’s three-decade insurgency, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
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The PKK initially took up arms in 1984 with the aim of establishing an independent state for Turkey’s Kurdish minority, although lately the demands focused on greater autonomy and rights.
Commentators have expressed alarm that the current situation increasingly resembles the worst days of the PKK’s insurgency in the 90s when attacks on this scale were commonplace.
In a scene that has become familiar over the last weeks, Davutoğlu will attend a funeral for the soldiers killed in the Dağlıca attack in the eastern city of Van later on Tuesday.
The unrest comes as Turkey prepares to hold snap elections on 1 November following polls in June where ruling party of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, lost its overall majority as a pro-Kurdish party made a major breakthrough.
Davutoğlu said the elections would be held under democratic conditions and urged the country’s political forces to stand “shoulder to shoulder” in a show of unity.
The co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş, called for peace between Turks and Kurds. “I am calling on all my brothers. No matter what they do … do not harm our brotherhood,” Demirtas told reporters. “Kurds, Turks embrace each other. The best medicine against all the provocations is peace.”
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