Ankara swears revenge: PKK is said to have executed 13 Turks

Sunday February 14th 2021

Ankara swears revenge
PKK is said to have executed 13 Turks

Turkey conquers a cave in an offensive against the Kurdish Workers' Party PKK and comes across 13 Turkish corpses. Ankara is sure that the Kurds would have executed the abductees and swear revenge. The bloody dynamic of the conflict hardly seems to stop.

During a mission in northern Iraq, the Turkish military found the bodies of 13 Turks allegedly kidnapped by the Kurdish Workers' Party PKK. Ankara accused the PKK of having executed the prisoners, including soldiers and police officers. The PKK rejected this. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said the kidnappings had not been announced in advance for security reasons. "I wish we could have got our 13 citizens out of there safely," he said.

At the beginning of President Erdogan's term in office there was a ceasefire with the PKK.

(Photo: picture alliance / AA)

On Wednesday, Turkey started a large-scale military operation against the PKK in northern Iraq in the northern Iraqi province of Dohuk and justified the action with self-defense, among other things. During a similar mission by Turkey in the summer, the Scientific Service of the Bundestag questioned whether it would be compatible with international law.

According to Akar, 48 PKK fighters and three soldiers have been killed in the military operation. The Turkish military had recently fought heavy battles with PKK fighters and, among other things, brought a cave under their control, said Akar. During the search, the 13 bodies were found. Akar said that two captured PKK fighters testified that the prisoners were executed shortly before the start of the operation in the area.

PKK blames the Turkish military

The PKK rejected this representation. A statement from its military arm HPG said that several prisoners had died as a result of the heavy Turkish bombing and fighting over a camp where soldiers, police and secret service personnel were held. The Turkish attack was not aimed at saving the prisoners, but rather aimed at completely destroying the camp, it said. Akar, who ordered the attack, was responsible for the deaths of the people.

The governorate of Malatya province has announced that ten dead have been identified. There are six soldiers and two police officers who were kidnapped by the PKK in eastern Turkey in 2015 and 2016. The governor's office did not provide any details about two other identified persons. The identity of three dead has not yet been established. The autopsy report showed that twelve people had been shot in the head at close range, and another was therefore hit in the chest.

The spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ibrahim Kalin, spoke of 13 civilians killed. He accused other countries of keeping silent about attacks by the PKK. "The world is silent. This silence is a shameful act of complicity," wrote Kalin. The fight against the PKK will continue. Erdogan's communications director Fahrettin Altun wrote on Twitter: "Our revenge will be painful."

More than 5000 dead since 2015

The Turkish state and the Turkish PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, Europe and the USA, have been fighting each other for decades. The PKK headquarters are located in the Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq. In July 2015, a ceasefire between the Turkish government and the PKK failed. Since then, the Turkish military has regularly launched attacks on the PKK in northern Iraq and south-eastern Turkey. In return, the PKK carried out attacks.

More than 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the end of the ceasefire, according to the International Crisis Group think tank. According to the Center for Applied Turkish Studies (CATS), Turkey has around 2,500 soldiers stationed in Iraq. Turkey's military operations in the neighboring country are straining the relationship between Ankara and the Iraqi central government in Baghdad. The Iraqi government is powerless to confront Turkish activities because it lacks the military influence in the region to stop them.

The affected region is one of the Kurdish autonomous regions in Northern Iraq. But the government in Baghdad is growing dissatisfied. The Turkish ambassador was summoned there several times. Iraq has also lodged complaints with the UN Security Council, and Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kasimi has described the Turkish operations as "unacceptable". But Baghdad is also reacting rather cautiously because Turkey is one of the most important trading partners. In addition, Ankara has committed a loan of five billion dollars for the reconstruction of the conflict-ridden country.