Turks Continue Assault on Kurds As US Watches From Sidelines

The ongoing Turkish campaign against the Kurds and the Islamic State continued on Thursday, when thirty planes bombed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets. The bombings were in retaliation for the killing of three Turkish soldiers by PKK militants during an attack on an army battalion in the province of Sirnak. According to reports, five PKK-associated locations were hit in Northern Iraq. The most recent attacks and bombings are part of a wider back-and-forth retaliatory conflict.

The most recent surge in violence first erupted in Turkey on July 20 when Islamic State militants carried out a suicide bombing in Suruc, Turkey. The Kurds blamed Turkey for supporting the Islamic State, and in retaliation, the PKK shot two Turkish police officers. With that said however, the Turks have been fighting the Kurds for decades.

Adding fuel to the fire is the Turkish governments claim their campaign is a two-pronged war on terror against both the Kurds and the Islamc State, but it has been increasingly focused on defeating the Kurdish forces. The PKK has claimed that Turkey’s campaign is not a fight against terror, and that it is instead an attempt to crush the Kurds’ political movement to “cement authoritarian rule in Turkey.” Furthermore, Selahattin Deirtas, the leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), has accused the Turkish government of being involved in the violence as an attempt to improve its performance in upcoming elections.

According to Turkish intelligence figures, 190 PKK fighters have been killed and 300 have been wounded in Turkey’s counterterrorism campaign. Additionally, Turkish police have arrested more than 1,300 individuals; 847 were arrested on allegations of being connected to the PKK.

Turkey and the US recently agreed to a “safe-zone” along the Turkey-Syria border in order for the US to utilize the Turkish Incirlik Air Base to carry out airstrikes against Islamic State. Although this could be viewed as the two nations collaborating in the fight against terror, the US and Turkey are fighting two very different battles. The safe-zone will be used by Turkish forces to train what they believe to be “moderate” forces to fight Assad’s forces. However, these “moderate” trainees are likely to be al-Nursa or al-Qaeda linked.

By partnering with Turkey, the US is allowing the Kurds, a group the US protected from Saddam Hussein in the 1990s with no-fly zones, to be pummeled by Turkish bombings and ground assaults. On July 27, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) claimed they were attacked by Turkish tanks in Syria, a claim Turkey denied.

The US has yet to grasp that Turkey’s true political goals in the region do not align with the US goal to defeat Islamic State. Overall, Turkey is generally apprehensive about taking on IS, as they fear more attacks on their homeland. Instead, they are using their so-called war on terror as propaganda in order to turn it into a campaign to eradicate the Kurdish population. As has been proven time and time again, the Kurds are a legitimate force when it comes to defeating IS. However, the Turks fear that if the Kurds are effective enough against IS, they will successfully establish their own Kurdish state. Rather than teaming up with a nation who seeks to eradicate the Kurds, the US needs to team up with the Kurds who also seek to destroy IS.