Ankara
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused the United States of siding with “terrorists” after blaming outlawed Kurdish militants of executing 13 Turks in northern Iraq. Erdogan’s comments came a day after Ankara said Kurdistan Workers’ Party rebels had killed 13 captives – most of them Turkish soldiers and police officers – they had allegedly abducted in southeast Turkey and kept in an Iraqi cave.
The PKK has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 that is believed to have left tens of thousands dead. The United States and Turkey’s other Western allies recognize the PKK as a terror group. But Washington has supported another Kurdish militia in Syria that Turkey sees as an offshoot of the PKK.
Turkey this month launched a military operation against rear PKK bases in northern Iraq that Erdogan said on Monday was designed in part to free the 13 hostages. “The statement made by the United States is a farce,” Erdogan said in his first public comments on the incident.— AFP
