US backs Kurdish militants including PKK says Erdogan
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States of supporting Kurdish militants, days after Turkish troops found the bodies of 13 Turkish soldiers, police and civilians abducted by Kurdish insurgents in a cave complex in northern Iraq.
“You are with them and behind, them pure and simple,” Erdogan says, referring to Kurdish militant group as well as Syrian Kurdish groups linked to the PKK.
Turkey considers these groups to be terrorists allied with the United States in the fight against the Islamic State.
Erdogan said 51 PKK militants were killed during the latest offensive and vowed to press ahead with cross-border offensives.
“We have the power, capability and determination to come down hard on the terrorists everywhere,” Erdogan says.
The PKK has executed 13 civilian captives in a cave in Gara, Iraq sparking reactions from Turkish officials who says the country will not remain silent against such crimes.
In retaliation, the Turkish military, in an operation in the region, eliminated 40 members of the PKK.
However, the Turkish government is furious the international community is closing an eye on the attacks perpetrated by the PKK against the Turkish military and civilian targets.
Presidential Spokesperson Ibrahim Kalın said in a tweet:
“PKK executes 13 civilian captives in a cave in #Gara, Iraq. It attacks Turkish & Iraqi security forces & civilians. It continues its terrorist attacks in northern Syria. The world is silent. This silence is a shameful act of complicity. But we will not remain silent.”
He laments the fact that the world has turned a blind eye and remains silent to the bloody attacks by the PKK terrorist group.
On Sunday, the Turkish military says, “forty-eight PKK terrorists were neutralized, including two senior members, in northern Iraq during Turkey’s anti-terror operation that has been completed.”
Defense Minister Hulusi Akar says two terrorists were captured and the region was mostly cleared of the terrorist group during the “extremely special and critical” operation in the Gara region.
Turkey says it will continue to fight not only the terrorist organization itself but also people and bodies that support it, serve as its fronts and legitimize and normalize terrorism.
“Terrorism seeks to make room for itself with gun-waving terrorists as well as civilian-looking phonies who support them.
“Our state and our nation won’t allow that and always deny opportunities to terrorist groups, which have blood on their hands, and those groups that support them,” says a Turkish official.