Turkey’s latest cross-border raid has failed, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems determined to make use of the killings of 13 Turkish citizens whose remains were discovered in a cave in the Gare region in northern Iraq, where outlawed Kurdish militants are based. 

The question of why the Turkish government had taken no action to rescue the hostages held by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) over the past five years despite numerous pleas by their families has gone unanswered. Yet Erdogan has already turned the tragic incident into a propaganda tool in both domestic and international politics. 

At home, Turkish authorities have unleashed a fresh crackdown on members of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party, detaining some 700 people amid growing calls from Erdogan’s far-right nationalist ally for a total political ban on the party.

More widely, the tragedy seems to have provided suitable ground for Erdogan to press ahead in Turkey’s talks with Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government to cleanse Sinjar of the PKK, which is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and the United States.