PKK announces ceasefire has ‘lost its meaning’ after Turkish army airstrikes

ISTANBUL

DHA photo

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has said the ceasefire between it and the Turkish government has “lost its meaning” after the Turkish army’s airstrikes against PKK camps in northern Iraq, which began on July 24. 

“The ceasefire has lost its meaning with the intense air bombardments that have been carried out,” said a statement by the People’s Defence Forces (HPG), the military wing of the PKK. 

The Turkish military from late July 24 until noon of July 25 embarked on a new air campaign to bombard PKK camps in northern Iraq, while also carrying out fresh airstrikes and shelling against targets controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria. 

“We have approved the third wave of airstrikes in Syria [against ISIL] and the second wave in Iraq [against the PKK],” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said, in a press conference in Ankara on July 25. 

The HPG’s statement said the Turkish army had conducted an intense campaign with multiple fighter jets against three PKK base areas in northern Iraq. 

The armed fight between the Turkish army and the PKK, which began in the mid-1980s, had paused in 2012 after the Justice and Development Party (AKP) launched a Kurdish peace process to solve the decades-long issue which has left more than 35,000 people dead.