Turkey accuses PKK militants of executing 13 Turkish captives in Iraqi Kurdistan
Turkey could use the deaths as justification to launch an operation against the PKK in Yazidi-dominated Sinjar, something Ankara has been lobbying Baghdad to greenlight.
Outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants have killed 13 Turkish hostages, identified mostly as servicemen and policemen, in a cave complex in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s mountainous Gare area where the militants are known to have multiple bases, Turkish officials said Feb. 14.
The news has had a bombshell effect and risks escalating ethnic tensions between Turks and the country’s large Kurdish minority. The hashtag “Kahrolsun PKK" — which is Turkish for “May the PKK be damned” — was trending on Turkish Twitter as Al-Monitor went to press.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu vowed to avenge the victims, saying all efforts would be made to capture Murat Karayilan, the head of the PKK’s armed wing known as the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), and to “cut him into a thousand pieces.”
“If not may our faces be spat upon,” Soylu said via Twitter.
