Turkey detains 718 over alleged Kurdish militia links in Iraq hostages killing

Turkey on Monday arrested 718 from across 40 cities over alleged links to the Kurdish militia that it declared a ‘terrorist’ organization following the execution of 13 Turkish soldiers, police personnel, and civilians in northern Iraq. Ankara’s interior ministry, on February 15, conducted raids across regions it did not disclose, where Turkish police held in detention opposition leaders of dominant Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in connection with the killings. Simultaneously irked at the United States for its military assistance to the PKK’s YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Washington of supporting ‘terrorists’, earlier on Monday. 

Following the incident, Turkey launched a massive covert search operation to make arrests against the rebel factions, who had held 13 in captivity, in retaliation to Turkey’s Operation Claw-Eagle airstrikes on PKK’s 80 targets in Qandil stronghold in northern Iraq. This was condemned by Iraq’s Joint Operations Command, who had denounced the Turkish airforce for hitting refugee camps. Turkish foreign ministry, meanwhile, summoned US Ambassador David Satterfield for its ad hoc policy of engagement for leftists Kurdish political actors and its military backing in Syria.

[A Turkish F-16 prepares to taxi ahead off airstrikes in Qandil stronghold. Credit: Selcan Hacaoglu/AP Photo]

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PYD close ally of US since WWI

Turkey, over the last few years, intensified efforts against militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), PKK’s Syrian affiliate, and Democratic Union Party (PYD), that spiralled regional upheaval with neighbouring Iraq and Syria. Turkey, which has long viewed the Syrian branch of PKK, People’s Protection Unit [PYD] as a state threat, has been held as a close ally by the US in the Middle East since WWI, despite that, the separatist guerrilla group is listed as a ‘terrorist’ group by both Turkey and the US. The latter, however, continues to dispense military backing for PYD for combating ISIS. 

“Did you not say you don’t support the PKK, the YPG, or the PYD? You are with them and behind them pure and simple,” Erdogan told a presser, berating US administration, following a statement by the State Department statement that condemned the hostages' killings.

“If we are together in NATO, and if we are to continue our (alliance) in NATO, you have to be sincere toward us,” Erdogan said, in a statement cited by the Associated Press.

“You must not take the side of the terrorists. You have to be on our side,” further, he asserted. Earlier, in the footages that were shot by on-ground reporters in Qamishli, Syria, dozens of US military trucks, including the Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicle used by the UK Special Forces, was seen arriving in northeastern Syria. However, US defended the military intervention citing its efforts to eliminate a resurgence of the Daesh and ISIS terror group in Syrian regime-controlled areas. Idlib, a crucible of the entire conflict in Syria has been under siege by Assad regime forces and its allies. 

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(Image Credit: AP)