Turkey summons NATO session amid airstrike campaign against ISIS & Kurdish PKK

After launching a second wave of airstrikes against the positions of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants, effectively ending a fragile two-year truce, Turkey has announced that it is calling a NATO meeting next week to discuss regional security concerns.

 

Ankara sent bombers on a mission for a second night on Sunday to annihilate logistics positions, warehouses, barracks and PKK bases in northern Iraq. Ankara has claimed it is retaliation for PKK attacks against security forces and police last week. The country has subsequently called a NATO meeting to discuss its security concerns not only about Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) but the PKK as well.

 

Four Turkish F-16 fighters took off from the Diyarbakir air base and hit PKK targets in Hakurk in northern Iraq, the sources told Reuters. Local media reports confirmed the airstrikes.

 

“At around 9:00pm (6:00pm GMT), Turkish planes started bombing some of our positions in two areas [north of Dohuk and north of Arbil]”, a spokesman for the PKK in Iraq, Bakhtiar Dogan, told AFP.

 

Some media reports claim that around 50 PKK camps were struck in three separate air operations and up to 300 bombs were dropped on PKK positions.

 

Sunday airstrikes came as a military vehicle was struck by a car bomb and roadside explosives on a highway near Diyarbakir overnight on Sunday. According to the army, Kurdish militants then opened fire, wounding four soldiers. Six people were detained following the attack.

 

According to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey, which launched its air campaign on Friday, is trying to tackle all “terrorist organizations,” not just Islamic State. For now however, Turkey does not intend to send ground troops into Syria to fight IS, Davutoglu said.