Kurdish militants launched their most deadly attacks in years on Turkish soldiers and police on Wednesday, killing at least 24 and prompting cross border raids into northern Iraq and airstrikes by Turkish forces. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed: "We will never bow to any attack from inside or outside Turkey.""Whoever supports terror, feeds it and helps it; whoever tolerates it and ignores its inhumane attacks, tries to cover the bloody face of terror," said Erdogan. "I want to let them all know that Turkey is breathing down their necks all the time."
The Turkish leader reached further, too, blaming unnamed local actors for trying to end Turkey's rise as a regional power. The latest attack, Erdogan said, showed that "terror is a tool in the hands of certain powers. The PKK are subcontractors used by other forces and other powers, trying to provoke Turkish society."
Turkey last week warned Iraqi authorities to deal with attacks staged from its soil, saying its "patience" was running out. Despite the potential regional reverberations, the timing of the attacks fits a previous pattern, experts say. Concurrently next door, a months-long antiregime uprising has already left 3,000 dead and continues in Syria, where the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has threatened to make Turkey pay for hosting the Syrian opposition.
On the other side of the ethnic Kurdish regions, Iran says it has damaged the Iranian arm of the PKK, known as PJAK, in a series of recent cross-border strikes. Iran is at loggerheads with Ankara for Turkey's recent agreement to host parts of a US-engineered regional missile-defense system, which aims to protect against any potential Iranian missile attack.
| Add in rattling sabers at Israel, making faces at the Greeks, playing Islamo-benefactor in Africa, lecturing the Egyptians, and placing an armada off Crete... Recep has been a busy little wannabe Ottoman. |
| Neo-Ottoman. That's what they call them nowadays, instead of posturing fools. |
| Wannabes and fools can be dangerous. Just saying. |