Turkey Strikes Kurdish Rebels After Ankara Blast

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Facts

  • Hours after a suicide bomber targeted Turkey's interior ministry in Ankara on Sunday, Turkey launched several airstrikes against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. The government said that 20 targets had been destroyed and several Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters had been neutralized.1
  • The PKK claimed responsibility for the bombing in the capital on Sunday morning when a member of the group reportedly blew himself up in a suicide bombing. Police shot and killed a second attacker, and two police officers reportedly were injured in the process.2
  • Turkey, the US, and the EU all consider the PKK to be a terrorist organization. In 1984, it began an insurgency in southeast Turkey against the Turkish government, which resulted in the deaths of almost 40K people.2
  • According to a statement by the Turkish Defense Ministry, the aerial operation destroyed 20 PKK targets in the Metina, Hakurk, Kandil, and Gara districts, which referenced the right to self-defense found in Article 51 of the UN Charter to justify the strikes.3
  • In an interview with Saudi Arabia's state-run television on Monday, Iraqi President Abdul-Latif Rashid stated that his country does not accept the frequent Turkish strikes or the presence of Turkish bases in the Kurdish region and hopes to work with Ankara toward a bilateral resolution.4
  • The PKK in northern Iraq has been the target of many cross-border offensives by Turkey. Additionally, Turkey has launched incursions into northern Syria since 2016 to drive out the Islamic State group as well as the People's Protection Units (YPG) — a Kurdish militia group that Turkey perceives as a PKK affiliate and currently holds influence across a sizable portion of northeast Syria.5

Sources: 1BBC News, 2Reuters, 3CNN, 4Al Jazeera and 5Associated Press.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by Daily sabah. Turkey is committed to eradicating the terrorist threat within and beyond its borders after the PKK's terrorist attack on Sunday. New anti-terrorism operations at the southern borders with Syria and Iraq are imminent. Turkey is devoted to upholding its plan of a 30-kilometer (19-mile)-deep security zone outside its borders with Syria and Iraq, among other things. The assault on the Interior Ministry on Sunday has further strengthened Ankara's resolve.
  • Narrative B, as provided by Balkan insight. The incident in Ankara on Sunday should be viewed in the context of Turkey's ongoing battle against Kurdish militants in neighboring Syria and Iraq, where Turkish forces continue to employ chemical weapons that are illegal under all applicable laws of war. Turkey is committing an authoritarian and ruthless oppression of the Kurdish people and all democratic values.
  • Narrative C, as provided by Reuters. The latest Turkish airstrikes on Iraqi Kurdistan have been rejected by the Iraqi government as a flagrant infringement of national sovereignty. These violations must end. The Iraqi government considers Turkey's repeated attacks to be at odds with the principle of good neighborliness between states and believes that security issues should be resolved diplomatically and through dialogue rather than by military force. All Iraqis oppose Turkey's most recent cross-border transgressions.