Turkish airstrikes kill 34 Kurds in Iraq
Ankara targets camps belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in mountainous border region
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The Turkish military announced Tuesday that it killed 34 Kurdish militants in a fresh wave of airstrikes in Iraq, Reuters reported.
According to Ankara, all those killed were members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), after Turkey’s air force targeted the group’s camps in northern Iraq’s Qandil mountain region.
Turkey has been grappling with a sharp increase in violence between security forces and Kurdish rebels concurrent to its involvement the US-led campaign against Islamic State group extremists. The Turkish lira has dropped to record lows against the dollar amid the political uncertainty.
More than a hundred people — mostly soldiers and police — have been killed since July in renewed conflict between the outlawed Kurdish group and the security forces, which has wrecked a 2 1/2-year-old peace process with the Kurds.
On Monday, PKK militants detonated a bomb on a road near Semdili town as a military vehicle was passing, killing two soldiers and injuring three others. Semdinli is near Turkey’s borders with Iraq and Iran.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called snap elections after his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) failed to form a coalition government with the opposition, after losing its overall majority in the 550-seat parliament for the first time since it came to power in 2002.
The Times of Israel Community.