After determining that militants who carried out a weekend attack in Ankara were from the nation, Turkey warned Wednesday that it would increase airstrikes against Kurdish sites in Syria and Iraq.
Turkey held a crucial national security meeting on Wednesday to plan its response to the attack on Sunday.
Turkey hints at escalating its airstrikes in Syria and Iraq
One of the attackers was shot dead by Turkish police, and the other was killed by an apparent suicide bombing outside the interior ministry.
In the event, two cops suffered injuries.
The first incident of this kind in Ankara since 2016 was blamed on a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey and its Western allies have designated as a terrorist organization.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in television remarks that it was “clear that the two terrorists came from Syria and were trained there” as a consequence of the work of his security agencies.
“Our security forces now have legal targets in all infrastructure, major facilities, and energy facilities owned by (armed Kurdish groups) in Iraq and Syria.”
A few hours later, Turkey launched airstrikes against PKK targets in Iraq.
Thabet al-Abbasi, the defense minister of Iraq, will meet with Yasar Guler, his Turkish counterpart, in Ankara on Thursday, according to the official Anadolu news agency.
Fidan’s remarks imply that Turkey may step up drone and artillery operations in Syria, where Ankara has troops and backs organizations that fight the Kurds.
The Kurds of Syria have established a semi-autonomous region in the north and east of the nation.
In 2019, the struggle that drove Islamic State group fighters from the last slivers of their Syrian land was led by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the de facto army of the Kurds in the region.
However, Turkey sees the SDF’s dominant Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) as a PKK offshoot.
In addition to a number of violent incursions into Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently promised to intensify his operations against the YPG.
