As Turks go to the polls tomorrow, Turkish tyrant Erdogan is hoping that the failure of his AKP party to obtain a majority in the parliamentary elections earlier this year will be remedied.
There have been wave of bombings, including the recent one in Ankara that killed over 100 people, the war against the Kurds and the PKK and a crackdown on the media.
The big question will be whether the pro-Kurdish HDP party, which includes feminists and gays, will surmount the 10% hurdle for a second time.
Tony Greenstein
Erdoğan says Turkey may hit US-backed Syrian Kurds to block advance
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| Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks to the media during a news conference in Ankara on Oct. 13. (Photo: AP) |
October 29, 2015, Thursday/ 10:15:53/ REUTERS WITH TODAYSZAMAN.COM / ISTANBUL
Turkey will "do what is necessary" to prevent US-allied Syrian Kurds from declaring autonomy in the town of Tel Abyad near the Turkish border, which includes conducting further military operations, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday.
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| PKK pick up truck |
NATO member Turkey is part of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in Syria, but it sees advances by autonomy-seeking Kurds, led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), as a threat to its own national security, fearing they could stoke separatism among Turkish Kurds.
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| PKK & PYD |
Turkish jets recently hit the Syrian Kurds' armed People's Protection Units (YPG) targets twice after they defied Ankara and crossed west of the Euphrates River.
"This was a warning. 'Pull yourself together. If you try to do this elsewhere -- Turkey doesn't need permission from anyone -- we will do what is necessary,'"Erdoğan said, signaling that he could defy Washington's demand that Ankara avoid hitting Syrian Kurds and focus his military might on ISIL targets.
Erdoğan, in remarks broadcast live on the Kanal 24 television station, also accused the PYD of carrying out "ethnic cleansing" in the area and said that Western support for the Syrian Kurdish militias amounted to aiding terrorism.
Backed by US-led air strikes, YPG fighters captured Tel Abyad in June from ISIL and this month a local leadership council declared the town part of the system of autonomous self-governing "cantons" run by the Kurds.
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| PKK & PYD |
"The PYD is committing ethnic cleansing here [of] Arabs and Turkmens,"Erdoğan said. "If the Kurds withdraw and don't form a canton, there's no problem. But if the mindset continues, then what is necessary will be done or we will face serious problems.
"We are determined to [combat] anything that threatens us along the Syrian border, inside or out."
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| PYD-Kobani |
Turkey does not want to see an autonomous Kurdish entity resembling Iraqi Kurdistan emerging on its southern flank, said Erdoğan, speaking days before a Turkish parliamentary election that has aggravated political and security tensions. Western allies are now arming the Kurds, he added.
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| Demonstration two weeks after bomb in Ankara |
"They don't even accept the PYD as a terrorist organization. What kind of nonsense is this?"he said. "The West still has the mentality that 'My terrorist is good, yours is bad.'"
Within Turkey, the armed forces have resumed their 30-year fight with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has close links with their ethnic brethren across the border in Syria.
Erdoğan said 1,400 PKK militants were fighting alongside the YPG in Syria.
The US and Europe, like Turkey, classify the PKK as a terrorist organization but regard the Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish groupings as valuable allies in the fight against ISIL and other jihadists.