Grief and defiance as PKK steps up campaign of violence

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (L) and Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ (2nd from L), along with Cabinet ministers, pray during a funeral ceremony at a military base in the eastern province of Van.

21 June 2010 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL

Turkey will never give in to violence and acts of terror, and terrorists will "drown in their own blood," an angry and sorrowful Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated on Sunday while condemning the brutal killings of 12 Turkish soldiers by terrorists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) over the weekend.

Terrorists attacked an army border unit in Şemdinli, Hakkari, at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning. Nine soldiers were killed and 14 were wounded in the attack, the General Staff announced. Turkish newspapers put the size of the assailing group at around 250. Two other soldiers were later killed by a land mine in the area. A separate terrorist assault on a military outpost in the eastern province of Elazığ late Saturday killed one soldier and injured another, which raised the number of slain soldiers to 12. “Our sorrow is immense. Our grief is as high as the mountains,” Erdoğan said in front of the flag-draped coffins of the slain soldiers while addressing a high-profile audience at a memorial ceremony at the Van Gendarmerie Security Command yesterday.

The radical escalation in PKK attacks, which resulted in the killing of 12 soldiers this weekend, seems aimed to deal a blow to the government-backed plan to thaw the ice between the state and Kurdish citizens. Also known as the Kurdish initiative, the plan hopes to put an end to the PKK terror by giving Kurds broader rights

»» Click here to see more photos

“But we will not bow. We will bury our grief in the depths of our hearts and will not make those traitors happy. I am putting it very clearly: They will not win. They will not gain anything. They will melt in their own darkness. They will dry up in their own swamps. They will drown in their own blood. We have never been daunted, and will never be so. We will never surrender to violence and acts of terror!” the prime minister exclaimed.

Sunday's ceremony was attended by Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ, Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek, who is responsible for the coordination of anti-terror efforts, Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül, Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, State Minister and chief EU negotiator Egemen Bağış and the envoys of 20 EU-member countries as well as many other statesmen and bureaucrats.

Following the ceremony, the remains of the slain soldiers were sent to their hometowns for burial. The renewed PKK terror comes shortly after the Turkish military warned that the terrorist organization might intensify its operations over the summer, as warmer weather brings increased infiltration of PKK terrorists from the mountains of northern Iraq. Several thousand terrorists are based there. The most recent attacks have spurred many to question why the military failed to step up security at border units and outposts despite the anticipation of terrorist attacks.

Eyes on General Staff for explanation

All eyes are now on the General Staff and its chief for a satisfactory explanation of the security weakness against PKK assaults.The General Staff has failed to step up security measures at military outposts and border units though they are frequently targeted by terrorists. More than 50 soldiers have been killed in attacks over the past four months. Parliament Speaker Mehmet Ali Şahin called on the General Staff to “give an explanation” on the attacks. “I feel grief [for the slain soldiers]. We say ‘May they rest in peace', and ‘May the country live long' after each fallen soldier. But such wishes do not satisfy our public,” he told reporters, and added that Turkish people are curious as to why the PKK has not been vanquished despite Turkey's very strong military. “I expect a satisfactory explanation from the General Staff about the soldiers killed in the most recent attacks. I expect an explanation which will address the questions of the families of the slain soldiers,” Şahin added. İstanbul Today’s Zaman

The Turkish military responded to the violence by sending warplanes across the Iraqi border to bomb suspected PKK bases while elite commandos crossed the border in pursuit of the terrorists in a daylong incursion on Saturday. The General Staff gave the PKK death toll as 12.

Also on Saturday, the prime minister put the blame for the PKK violence on the terrorist group's “foreign collaborators,” saying, “The Turkish nation knows very well on whose behalf the terrorist organization works as a subcontractor.” Many saw this as a veiled reference to Israel as the power behind the PKK assaults. The ties between Turkey and Israel have been severely shaken recently, with Erdoğan openly accusing Israel of being engaged in anti-Turkey operations.

Some observers believe the terrorist attacks came as retaliation for the recent arrest of several members of a delegation of PKK deserters who left the Kandil Mountains and the Makhmour camp to surrender to Turkish authorities in October 2009. Ten deserters were arrested last week as part of an ongoing court case charging them with “conducting propaganda for a terrorist organization.”

To many others, however, the attacks seemed aimed to deal a blow to the government-backed plan to thaw the ice between the state and Turkey's Kurdish citizens. Also known as the Kurdish initiative, the plan hopes to root out the PKK terror by giving broader cultural and political rights to Kurds.

Erdoğan held an “evaluation meeting” with the force commanders and state ministers who attended yesterday's memorial ceremony in Van to discuss the details of the PKK attacks. The prime minister and the chief of General Staff also conducted a land inspection of the area where the Şemdinli attack occurred following the ceremony in Van. Top military commanders, Cabinet ministers and the head of the National Intelligence Agency (MİT) escorted Erdoğan and Başbuğ during the inspection tour near Turkey's border with Iraq.

Turkey has lost at least 40,000 members of the security forces and civilians in the fight against the outlawed PKK since 1984, when the terrorist organization was set up with the goal to establish an autonomous Kurdish state in the eastern and southeastern parts of Turkey. The PKK has been declared a terrorist organization by the international community, including the US and the EU.

Turkey currently cooperates with the US in real-time intelligence sharing to assist its operations against the PKK. Turkey also hosted Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani recently in order to develop relations with the leader to curb the PKK threat stemming from northern Iraq. During the meeting, Turkish authorities presented Barzani a new report on the presence of the outlawed PKK in northern Iraq. The report, drafted by the MİT, describes how the PKK has taken steps to make its presence in the region permanent and seeks to inform the regional Kurdish administration of northern Iraq about the situation.