Troubles in Turkey’s backyard
Turkey’s rugged Kurdish region in the country’s southeast has exploded in violence once again, posing a new challenge for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. More than 80 soldiers have been killed this year in attacks orchestrated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group, already exceeding the total for all of 2009. ...
Turkey's rugged Kurdish region in the country's southeast has exploded in violence once again, posing a new challenge for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. More than 80 soldiers have been killed this year in attacks orchestrated by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group, already exceeding the total for all of 2009. Turkey responded this week by bombing PKK strongholds in northern Iraq.
Turkey’s rugged Kurdish region in the country’s southeast has exploded in violence once again, posing a new challenge for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. More than 80 soldiers have been killed this year in attacks orchestrated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group, already exceeding the total for all of 2009. Turkey responded this week by bombing PKK strongholds in northern Iraq.
This renewal of violence should serve as a reminder to Erdogan that peace begins at home — not in Gaza or Iran. The prime minister won regional prestige for undercutting U.S. diplomacy by striking a nuclear fuel swap deal with Iran in May and for lambasting Israel in June over its botched raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, which resulted in the deaths of nine Turks. Translating this newly aggressive foreign policy into domestic support, however, has proved trickier.
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