Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday vowed there would be “no concessions” in Turkey’s relentless offensive against Kurdish militants, AFP reported.
The statement came a day after the Turkish president vowed that his country would press on with its relentless campaign against the Kurds “until not one terrorist” was left.
Meanwhile, violence raged on in Turkey, with one Turkish soldier and two suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) killed in clashes in the southeast that erupted when the Kurdish rebels attacked a military post in the Diyarbakir region, the army said.
“A state subjected to an armed attack has the right to defend (itself) with arms,” Erdogan had said before the latest bloodshed, vowing there would be “no concessions” in the fight against “terror”.
Turkey is currently pressing a two-pronged “anti-terror” offensive against Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists in Syria and PKK militants following a wave of attacks inside the country.
So far, however, the Turkish raids have concentrated on the PKK targets, and only three of them have officially been identified as targeting ISIS. The Kurdish rebels have responded by tearing up a 2013 ceasefire and waging a bloody campaign against the security forces.
“Let me put it clearly, the operations will continue,” Erdogan told local municipal chiefs at his presidential palace in Ankara, according to AFP.
“We will never stop in the face of all these attacks. We will continue to fight with determination,” he stressed.
The state-run Anatolia news agency reported over the weekend that so far 390 “terrorists” had been killed in the campaign against the PKK.
Erdogan called on the PKK, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by Ankara and much of the international community, to lay down its arms and bury them “under concrete”.
“We extended our hand but they responded with arms,” Erdogan said, reaffirming his verdict that the peace process was now “on ice”.