150 troops cross border in pursuit of Kurd rebels

Erdogan says nation will never abandon its future and vows to get beyond ‘plague of terror’

Turkish forces crossed into northern Iraq to pursue Kurdish militants on Tuesday after the deadliest rebel attacks in years left dozens dead in a new escalation of the decades-long conflict.

Thirteen Turkish police were killed on Tuesday in a new attack by Kurdistan militants from Workers’ Party, or PKK, as violence threatened to spiral out of control.

Early on Tuesday, the Turkish air force pounded PKK targets in northern Iraq while special forces crossed the border in a rare land incursion, a Turkish government source said.

“This is a short-term measure intended to prevent the terrorists’ escape,” the official said.

The state-run Anatolia agency said 150 Turkish troops had entered northern Iraq with the aim of “destroying” two dozen PKK militants who escaped from Turkey over the border after carrying out the Daglica attack.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned on Tuesday the recent attacks against Turkish security personnel”.

Reacting to the escalation, the US called for the Turkish government and PKK to return to the negotiating table.

“The United States has indicated that it is important for Turkey and the PKK to return to their process of reaching a peaceful solution,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, while adding the US “obviously stands with our ally in Turkey”.

Since late July, Ankara has used air power and ground forces to try cripple the PKK in its strongholds in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.

But the group has hit back, killing dozens of Turkish police and soldiers in almost daily attacks, with the bloodier attacks marking a new intensification of the conflict.

The 13 police were killed in a bomb attack on a minibus in the eastern region of Igdir, the local governorate said. They had been en route to the Dilucu post near the border with Azerbaijan when the attack took place.

A PKK spokesman in

It is important for Turkey and the PKK to return to their process of reaching a peaceful solution.” Josh Earnest, White House spokesman

northern Iraq confirmed that the group carried out the attack.

Violence upended

The violence has upended a 2013 cease-fire aimed at finding a final peace deal to end the PKK’s three-decade insurgency, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The PKK initially took up arms in 1984 with the aim of establishing an independent state for Turkey’s Kurdish minority, although lately the demands have focused on greater autonomy and rights.

Commentators have expressed alarm that the current situation increasingly resembles the worst days of the PKKs insurgency in the 1990s when attacks on this scale were commonplace.

“We did not and will not abandon the nation’s future to three or five terrorists,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a defiant speech in Ankara.

But he promised that “with God’s permission, Turkey, which has overcome plenty of crises, will get over the plague of terror.”

In a scene that has become familiar in recent weeks, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu attended a funeral for soldiers killed in the Daglica attack.

“For the unity of this nation, this homeland, anyone responsible for each and every act of bloodshed will be brought to account,” he said, weeping openly.