Turkey blames PKK for deadly attack on troops

Two cops killed in apparent response to new strikes on militants

istanbul — The Turkish army on Sunday blamed PKK militants for a deadly car bomb attack that killed two of its soldiers in the Kurdishdominated southeast, as a fragile truce risked collapsing after Ankara’s air strikes on rebel positions in Iraq.

Turkey has launched a twopronged “anti-terror” cross-border offensive against the Daesh terror group and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants after a wave of violence in the country, pounding their positions with air strikes and artillery.

But the expansion of the campaign to include not just Daesh group targets in Syria but PKK rebels in neighbouring northern Iraq — themselves bitterly opposed to the militants — has put in jeopardy a truce with the Kurdish militants that has largely held since 2013.

The PKK on Saturday said that the conditions were no longer in place to observe the ceasefire, following the heaviest Turkish air strikes on its positions in northern Iraq since August 2011.

The car bomb went off as the soldiers were travelling on a road in the Lice district of Diyarbakir province on Saturday, the statement from the local governor’s office said.

“Two of our personnel were killed in the heinous attack, four were wounded,” it said. The army nairobi — The White House on Sunday backed Turkey’s right to strike back at Kurdish militants. “Turkey has a right to take action related to terrorist targets,” said deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes.

“The US of course recognises the PKK specifically as a terrorist organisation,” Rhodes said, while welcoming parallel Turkish action against the Daesh terror group.

“We encourage our different partners in this fight to work together,” said Rhodes. — blamed the “Separatist Terror Organisation” for the attack, using its customary phrase for the PKK which it never refers to by name.

It said the victims had been lured to the site of the attack after the PKK set three vehicles on fire on the road linking the cities of Diyarbakir and Bingol. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The PKK has for decades waged a deadly insurgency in the southeast of Turkey for self-rule, a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. A peace process that began in 2013 has so far failed to yield a final deal.

“The ceasefire appears to be over,” said David Romano, Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University in emailed comments, arguing that the main focus of the Turkish military campaign was the PKK rather than Daesh terror group.

Turkish armed forces on Saturday pressed on with a new wave of strikes against the Daesh group and PKK targets, but there were no reports of new air raids overnight.

The military wing of the PKK said in a statement that one PKK fighter in northern Iraq — named as Onder Aslan — was killed in air strikes overnight Friday to Saturday and three others wounded.

The president of the Kurdishruled autonomous region in northern Iraq, Massud Barzani, expressed “displeasure with the dangerous level the situation has reached,” his office said.

With Washington gladdened by Turkey’s readiness to step up its role in the coalition against Daesh terror group, the White House backed Turkey’s right to bomb the PKK.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu ordered the campaign after a week of violence in Turkey which began on Monday with a suicide bombing blamed on Daesh terror group in a town close to the Syrian border that killed 32.

This incensed Turkey’s Kurds who have long accused the government of actively colluding with Daesh terror group, allegations Ankara categorically denies.

Two Turkish policeman were shot dead on Wednesday while sleeping in their homes in the southeast, in murders claimed by the PKK.

The violence has fanned fears that the conflict in Syria’s civil war between the Daesh group and Kurdish militias allied to the PKK is spilling into Turkish territory.

With Turkey still without a permanent government after a June 7 election resulted in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) losing its overall majority for the first time since 2002, parliament has been summoned to meet on Wednesday to discuss the security situation.

Tensions across the country are high, with police routinely using water cannon to disperse nightly protests in Istanbul and other cities denouncing the Daesh group and the government’s policies on Syria. — london — Former Scottish nationalist leader Alex Salmond said on Sunday that another referendum on independence from the United Kingdom was “inevitable” because of policies pursued by Prime Minister David Cameron’s government in London.

“I think a second independence referendum is inevitable,” Salmond told the BBC, although he would not say when.

Salmond resigned as leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and first minister of the devolved government in Edinburgh after Scots voted “no” to independence by 55 to 45 per cent in September.

But nationalist feeling has soared in Scotland since then, and in May’s general election the SNP won 56 out of 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons, making them the third largest party after the main opposition Labour party.

“I can see three issues which are moving things towards a second referendum, on a timescale yet to be determined,” said Salmond, who is still an MP.

The first was the “refusal to deliver the vow”, Cameron’s promise of more powers to the Scottish government that was widely credited with swinging the independence vote.—