Turkish forces crossed into Iraq on Tuesday to pursue Kurdish militants after dozens were killed in the deadliest attacks for years, as protesters assailed offices of the main pro-Kurdish party in a night of nationalist-tinged violence.
Thirteen Turkish police officers were killed on Tuesday in a new attack by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants, as violence in the east threatened to spiral out of control.
That came two days after 16 Turkish soldiers died in a twin roadside bombings in Daglica in the southeastern Hakkari region, the army said, the deadliest strike on troops in the latest phase of the long-running insurgency.
Early on Tuesday, the Turkish air force pounded PKK targets in northern Iraq, while special forces crossed the border in a rare land incursion, a Turkish government source said.
“This is a short-term measure intended to prevent the terrorists’ escape,” the official said.
Anatolia news agency said 150 Turkish troops had entered northern Iraq with the aim of “destroying” two dozen PKK militants who escaped from Turkey over the border after carrying out the Daglica attack.
Nationalist protesters vented their anger at the bombings by attacking buildings across the nation belonging to the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which they accuse of being the political wing of the PKK.
In Ankara, dozens of people threw stones and ripped down the sign outside the HDP’s headquarters, images broadcast by the CNN-Turk TV channel showed, while pictures on social media suggested the interior of the building had been gutted by fire.
Similar nationalist demonstrations took place in six other cities across Turkey, CNN-Turk reported, with protesters setting the HDP offices in southern resort city of Alanya on fire and damaging other buildings linked to the party.
The HDP yesterday accused the government of supporting a campaign of “lynching” and dragging the nation into war after two nights of attacks against its offices.
A party official said that scores of attacks across the country had caused “major damage.”
HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas denounced the attacks, which he said were supported by the government.
“In the last two days more than 400 attacks [on HDP] property have been carried out. We are facing a campaign of lynching,” he said, adding that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had ordered a campaign to target the HDP and said they should be brought to justice.
Since late July, Ankara has used air power and ground forces to try cripple the PKK in its strongholds in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq, but the group has hit back, killing dozens of Turkish police officers and soldiers in almost daily assaults.
The 13 police oficers were killed in a bomb attack on a minibus in the eastern region of Igdir, the local governorate said, as they were en route to the Dilucu post near the border with Azerbaijan. A PKK spokesman confirmed that the group carried out the attack.
Two other police officers were killed in separate attacks in the east and southeast blamed on the PKK, official media said.
The violence has upended a 2013 ceasefire aimed at sealing a peace deal to end the three-decade insurgency.
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