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Turkey president pledges to purge PKK fighters

Iran Press TV

Tue Aug 11, 2015 5:34PM

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to press on with a campaign against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants.

“We will continue our fight until weapons are laid down... and not one single terrorist remains within our borders," Erdogan said in a televised speech in the capital, Ankara, on Tuesday.

Erdogan’s comments comes as Turkey recently launched airstrikes against the positions of PKK in Iraq after a deadly bomb attack attributed to Daesh militants left 32 people dead in the southeastern Turkish town of Suruc, across the border from the northern Syrian town of Kobani.

“We know that the terrorist organization sustained serious losses as a result of operations carried out inside and outside our country,” Erdogan said, referring to the PKK.

The Turkish president went on to say that Ankara has carried out “effective operations” against Daesh terrorist group in Syria.

"We have also carried out effective operations against Daesh which poses a threat to our security," he said, adding, “For us, there is no difference between terrorist organizations. Whatever their purpose is, for us, a terrorist organization is a terrorist organization.”

Turkey’s attacks against Daesh targets come amid accusations that Turkey is providing assistance to Daesh militants operating in Syria. The Turkish government has also been under fire for facilitating militants’ border crossing into Syria, which has been grappling with foreign-backed militancy since March 2011.

Erdogan also blamed Kurdish political authorities for not appreciating Turkey's steps to end the conflict with the group.

“Unfortunately they did not understand what has been done” for them, he said, stressing, “Therefore the solution process is now in the fridge.”

On August 6, Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chair of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), accused the government of Erdogan of using the so-called anti-Daesh fight as a cover to pursue its main goal of targeting the PKK and undermining the HDP.

He also called on the international community to censure Ankara’s new “unjust war” on Kurds.

Also on August 7, the HDP in a statement dismissed Ankara’s claims that its attacks earlier this month targeted positions of the PKK in northern Iraq, saying civilians have fallen victim to the raids.

“Those who lost their lives due to the bombing were civilians and unarmed people. The responsibility of the airstrike that resulted in the massacre of civilians rests with Ankara,” the statement said.

A shaky ceasefire that had stood since 2013 was declared as null by the PKK following the Turkish airstrikes against the group.

The PKK had been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. The conflict has left tens of thousands of people dead.