Truce has no meaning after Turkish attacks, PKK says

Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has announced that its ceasefire with Ankara has lost all its meaning after Turkey’s warplanes and artillery fire struck their bases in northern Iraq.

“The conditions for maintaining the ceasefire...have been eliminated,” the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), PKK military wing, said in a statement released on Saturday.

The HPG further denounced what it termed as “aggression of war” by Turkey and vowed “resistance.”

The Turkish government launched a peace process with the PKK in 2012 to put an end to the armed campaign by the Kurdish group to gain autonomy.

The PKK subsequently declared a ceasefire with Ankara and began pulling out from southeastern Turkey to camps in northern Iraq, where they are currently based.

However, Turkish military aircraft conducted airstrikes against PKK positions at Mount Qandil in the far-flung mountains of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region early on Saturday.

Turkey’s ground forces have also carried out artillery attacks on PKK militants in northern Iraq.

The raids, which were Turkish army’s fiercest against PKK targets since August 2011, threw the ceasefire between PKK and Ankara into doubt.

One PKK fighter in northern Iraq, identified as Onder Aslan, has been killed in the air strikes and three others wounded.

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.

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