Ankara’s response was not long in coming. Turkey on Sunday warned “terrorists” and carried out airstrikes against the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan, a few hours after a suicide attack by the organization, which left two people injured in the heart of the Turkish capital.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a “terrorist organization” by Ankara and its Western allies including the EU, claimed responsibility for the attack with the ANF press agency, which is close to it. The suicide attack targeted the police headquarters. The Minister of the Interior, Ali Yerlikaya, specified that one of the two attackers in Ankara blew himself up and that the other was shot “in the head”. This is the first attack for which the PKK has claimed responsibility since September 2022 when it killed a police officer.
Twenty targets targeted by Ankara
Turkish strikes targeted several sectors of autonomous Kurdistan in northern Iraq on Sunday evening, a local official said, with Ankara confirming having targeted “20 targets” used by Turkish Kurdish PKK fighters.
“Turkish army planes bombed areas of the Bradost region around 9:20 p.m., just as they bombed the village of Badran,” said Ihsan Chelabi, mayor of the town of Sidakan, located not far from the borders. with Turkey and Iran. The Turkish Ministry of Defense, for its part, recognized an “air operation” in northern Iraq to “neutralize the PKK”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had warned earlier that “the scoundrels who threaten the peace and security of citizens have not achieved their objectives and will never achieve them”.