Turkey has accused Syria and Iran of backing Kurdish terrorist attacks on military outposts in the south-east of the country in which 30 people were killed.
Turkey has accused Syria and Iran of backing Kurdish terrorist attacks on military outposts in the south-east of the country in which 30 people were killed.
Kurdish-dominated provinces in Turkey have been swept by an upsurge in attacks by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in recent weeks. Fighting has spiked since the group gained control of dozens of villages across northern Syria this summer, when the regime concentrated its forces on Aleppo.
Ten soldiers and twenty PKK fighters were reported killed yesterday (Monday) in overnight clashes in the town of Beytussebap in the Sirnak province of Turkey. It was the largest of four separate PKK attacks near the Syrian border.
In a separate incident, a suspected suicide bomber was shot dead by the security forces near Sanliurfa city.
The PKK has been at war with Ankara for 30 years and the conflict has claimed 45,000 lives. But recent fighting has been the worst for more than a decade and Turkish leaders have pointed the finger directly at President Bashar al-Assad.
"It's known that the PKK works arm in arm with Syria's intelligence organisation," said Huseyin Celik, the deputy chairman of Turkey's AK party. "Assad is inclined to view Turkey's foe, the PKK, as a friend."
Officials said the cross-border element to the attacks could be traced to eastern Syrian enclaves where the flags of the PKK and its allies have been hoisted to demonstrate de facto control.
Turkish suspicions of a conspiracy between neighbouring regimes have been fuelled by a simultaneous PKK offensive in the eastern province of Semdinli, which borders Iran. Turkish newspapers last week reported claims that more than 100 Iranian agents were active in Turkey working on behalf of the PKK.
Meanwhile Syrian regime documents seized by rebels include instructions to resist the advance of Turkish influence.
Towns such as Afrin, west of Aleppo, and Qamishli, to the east, are controlled by the PKK and its local offshoot the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), and are off-limits to Syrian rebels.
Mohammad Haj Hassan, the most prominent Kurdish commander in the rebel movement fighting in Aleppo, told The Daily Telegraph that the PKK exerted a strong grip on his fellow Kurds. "There are no-go places for us because of the PKK's ties to the regime," he said. "When the rebellion broke out the PKK was given arms and they fought us. Now they defend the towns they control but don't let us enter. It is one of the greatest problems for the revolution."
Turkey's government had begun a tentative peace process with the PKK before the Syrian crisis erupted. But with the organisation's return to guerrilla attacks, hopes for a settlement that would grant formal autonomy to the country's 14 million Kurds have been dashed.
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