Turkey Headed Toward Civil War “30 million Kurd uprising against Turkish occupation”

December 19, 2015 By administrator

Dozens of Kurdish fighters and several Turkish soldiers have lost their lives in bloody clashes in Turkey’s southeast this week, and the shadow of civil war is increasingly seen day by day.

Increasingly, signs that ongoing clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish fighters may soon turn into a full-scale civil war, with much of the Kurdish population involved, have caused deep concern.

Ankara’s hardline politicians and Turkish nationalists across the country are pouring oil onto the flames with violent rhetoric.

“The operations carried out by the Turkish Armed Forces, gendarmerie and police will continue in the region in a steadfast manner until public security is established,” a recent statement by Turkey’s General Staff reads.

Over a hundred fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have been killed in action in the south-east province of Sirnak this week, according to Turkish media. In a full-scale military operation launched on Tuesday, two government soldiers were killed while 23 others, including members of the police, were injured.

This course of events is what many have been warning against.

“When we see these moves, we will know that Pandora’s Box has been opened and we can expect that both sides are heading to a level of violence that could become a civil war,” Metin Gurcan, a Turkish analyst, wrote for Al Monitor earlier this week.

Before the “anti-PKK” operation, as the Turks call their military actions in Cizre, Silopi, and other spots, both PKK and the government forces had been telling civilians to leave the area or go into hiding. Now, peace in this part of the Middle East looks a lot like war.

Turkey’s HDP warns government not to push country into civil war

September 9, 2015 By administrator

The leader of Turkey’s main opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has warned the government in Ankara of the potential breakout of a civil war in the country.

Selahattin Demirtas, who is himself a member of Turkey’s Kurd community, said it is the people’s right to respond to those who attempt to burn their homes, businesses, and party building with “proportional” force.

“Everyone should use proportional means to defend themselves,” Demirtas said on Wednesday during a press conference in Turkey’s eastern province of Diyarbakir. “You have got to force them to regret what they do,” threatened Demirtas.

The co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish, left-wing political party accused Turkey’s ruling party of stoking violence in the country to drum up nationalists’ support ahead of an upcoming election.

Turkey is to hold snap elections on November 1 to choose a government after inconclusive polls held in June cancelled the AK Party’s decade-long rule in the parliament.

Demirtas said the pro-Kurdish opposition party was currently “facing a campaign of lynching” orchestrated by the AKP.

Demirtas’ comments came after a night of nationalist protests in the capital, Ankara, and elsewhere, during which several HDP offices and shops belonging to Kurds were set on fire.

“Tonight alone, 186 attacks were carried out. And our headquarters were targeted. This is definitely a planned attack that was orchestrated from one particular place,” said the HDP deputy chairman, Alp Altinors.

“The president and his staff at the palace are the ones behind these attacks,” Altinors argued.

Turkish nationalists see the HDP as the de facto political wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group fighting the Ankara government for autonomy.

The HDP denies such claims. However, it has voiced its opposition to waging war against Kurds.

Nationalist anger toward Kurds has increased following recent attacks on security forces and police officers by the PKK in Turkey’s southeast.

At least 14 police officers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in eastern Turkey’s Igdir Province earlier on Tuesday.

In a separate attack on the same day, at least three Turkish police officers were reportedly killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack by the PKK militants on their armored vehicle in the town of Cizre, the southeastern province of Sirnak.

Turkey has been engaged in one of its biggest security operations in the southern border region over the past weeks. The Turkish military has been conducting offensives against alleged positions of Takfiri Daesh terrorists in northern Syria as well as those of the PKK in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey.

The security operations began in the wake of the deadly July 20 bomb attack in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, an ethnically Kurdish town located close to the Kurdish town of Kobani on the other side of the border in Syria, where over 30 people died. The Turkish government blamed Daesh for the bombing. On July 22, the PKK claimed responsibility for the killing of two Turkish police officers, saying they were cooperating with Daesh.

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

Turkey: AKP may resort to civil war to remain in power: Turkey opposition

August 30, 2015 By administrator

Turkey’s opposition parties have warned that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) may resort to any possible means, even a civil war, to delay the November elections and maintain its grip on power.

“When they [AKP leaders] realize they will lose [the upcoming election], they will resort to all means possible, including igniting a war, to ensure that the election is postponed,” Erdal Aksünger, a senior member of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said in an interview with the Turkish Today’s Zaman daily on Saturday.

Aksünger further referred to the recent flare-up of violence between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), saying the opposition parties fear that the AKP may intentionally exacerbate the military conflict with Kurdish militants in an attempt to delay the polls.

“Such a development will greatly harm the country and the nation and will cause irreparable damage,” he went on to say, noting, “I don’t think they will show a democratic maturity when they understand they will not be able to win the election again.”

There has been renewed conflict between the PKK and Turkish security forces since July. Turkey has been launching airstrikes against purported Daesh targets in Syria as well as PKK positions in Iraq after a bomb attack, attributed to Daesh, left 32 people dead in the southeastern Turkish town of Suruc on July 20.

Meanwhile, Ayhan Bilgen, the spokesman for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), said that the ruling party’s leaders are anxious about the results of the upcoming elections because they know that they will be legally held accountable for their wrongdoings once they are removed from power.

“We are faced with a party that is obliged to stay in power out of fears of being on trial,” he stressed.

Source: presstv.com