President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he expected concrete steps from allies in support of Turkey’s counter-terrorism fight after a weekend bomb attack in Ankara, for which a Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility.
Erdogan was speaking after Turkish police staged raids across the country on Tuesday, detaining dozens of suspects over alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The attack happened just as the parliament returned from recess and was expected to take on Sweden’s NATO bid.
A suicide attacker blew himself up Sunday outside Turkey’s police headquarters, wounding two police officers in Ankara, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
U.S. Central Command forces conducted a helicopter raid in northern Syria on Sept. 28 capturing Mamduh Ibrahim al-Haji Shaykh, an Islamic State facilitator, Central Command said on Saturday.
Last week, the Central Command forces said it had captured Abu Halil al-Fad’ani, an ISIS Syria Operational and Facilitation official, who was assessed to have relationships throughout the ISIS network in the region, during a raid on Sept. 25.
No civilians were injured or killed during the both operations, both Central Command statements said.
Turkey’s crackdown on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) following a suicide attack in Ankara has left the US in a difficult position.
While Washington has condemned the attack and voiced support for Turkey’s right to defend itself, mass arrests and air strikes in Kurdish areas of Iraq have led to the US needing to walk a fine line.
The US, along with Turkey and the EU, regard the PKK as a terrorist entity. But Turkey’s counter-terrorism measures have included rounding up nearly 1,000 people in raids across the country as well as striking targets inside Iraq.
In the past, US President Joe Biden’s administration has expressed concern over human rights breaches in Turkey, including in a 2022 country report in which the State Department claimed there were “credible reports” of killings, suspicious deaths of people in police custody, arbitrary arrests and the “continued detention of tens of thousands of persons”, among other issues.
On Sunday, Turkey launched attacks on 20 targets in northern Iraq – a move that drew condemnation from Baghdad.
“These violations are rejected by the Iraqi people, the [Kurdistan] region and all of Iraq’s inhabitants,” Iraq’s President Abdul Latif Rashid said in an interview with Saudi-owned television network Al Hadath.
Washington, which remains close to Baghdad, has been placed in a delicate position, as relations with Nato ally Turkey have become frayed in recent years.
“We recognise the legitimate security threat the PKK poses to Turkey and we urge Turkey to pursue joint counter-terrorism co-operation with Iraq in a way that supports and respects Iraqi sovereignty,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Monday.
Though the US views the PKK as a terrorist organisation, it is allied with the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is primarily made up members of the Kurdish-led People’s Defence Units.
The US sees the SDF as critical in the fight against the remnants of ISIS in the region.
It is a partnership that has angered and frustrated Turkey for years.
“This policy of the United States supporting the PKK’s Syrian franchise has been one of the top two or three irritants in US-Turkish relations since that policy was adopted in 2014,” Richard Outzen, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and retired colonel in the US military, told The National.
Mr Outzen believes that at some point, US support for the SDF will have to end.
“The returns have dropped and the costs remain exceptionally high,” Mr Outzen said.
“The contradiction within this policy is that we would somehow expect our Turkish Nato ally to provide broad geopolitical and security co-operation elsewhere in Syria, Iraq and in Ukraine and in broader strategic terms at the same time that we are arming, equipping and training part of their number one security threat could not be sustained forever.”
He called Washington’s support of the SDF a “flawed policy,” but acknowledged the US had invested too much to simply abandon it.
Meanwhile, Ankara has steadily reduced the PKK’s abilities in Turkey and elsewhere.
“With a steady drumbeat, they are really attriting large numbers of PKK leadership, even junior leadership,” Mr Outzen said.
When asked about whether Turkey’s targeting of the PKK makes long-term support for the SDF untenable, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said only that the US military’s Central Command remains focused on defeating ISIS.
“Any actions that further destabilise our mission, which is the enduring defeat of ISIS, don’t serve that mission,” she said.
The three energy companies, which are already operating in another block in Lebanese waters in the Eastern Mediterranean, submitted their tenders for offshore exploration in blocks 8 and 10.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Energy and Water announced on Monday that a coalition of international oil giants applied for the second gas offshore licensing round in two blocks in Lebanese waters.
Police detained almost 1,000 people in raids across Turkey on Tuesday, including dozens with alleged links to Kurdish militants, days after a suicide bomb attack in the Turkish capital.
Police detained at least 67 people across Turkey on Tuesday in a sweep targeting people with alleged links to Kurdish militants, days after a suicide bomb attack in the Turkish capital.
While a fragile ceasefire exists between the Saudi-led coalition and Ansarallah-allied forces, Yemen remains subjected to severe economic warfare, designed, backed, and orchestrated entirely by western powers.
The attack happened just as the parliament returned from recess and was expected to take on Sweden’s NATO bid.
A suicide attacker blew himself up Sunday outside Turkey’s police headquarters, wounding two police officers in Ankara, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
The attack inside Turkey, the first since 2016 for the PKK, has prompted worries over Washington’s partnership with Syrian Kurds.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) carried out a suicide attack on the headquarters of Turkey’s national security directorate in Ankara on Sunday. Does the violence mark a shift in the group’s strategy that can imperil the military partnership between its Syrian Kurdish franchise and the United States?
Overview
The Houthi movement was established in Yemen in the early 1990s, based on Shiite Zaydi Muslim residents, who make up about 30% of the country’s population. In 2004, the movement mounted a rebellion against the central government in Yemen because it had become too closely affiliated with the US and Israel. Until 2009, six rounds of fighting between the parties took place, at the end of which the Houthis established autonomy in northern Yemen. Over time, the Houthis managed to increase their power and areas of control, and in 2015, they deposed the incumbent president. This move has led, among other things, to the establishment of a coalition of Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which set itself the goal of defeating the Houthis and restoring the previous regime. In response, the Houthis also began to carry out attacks on the territory of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, using advanced weapons provided by Iran.