Turkey has detained 1,050 people in a crackdown on militant groups including the Islamic State (IS) group and the Kurdistan Workers Party in recent days, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Monday, July 27.
Davutoglu made the comments in an interview broadcast live on Turkey’s ATV television, said that 50 to 60 of those detained are foreign nationals.
Turkey’s crackdown on suspected militants, in which the ultra-leftist DHKP-C group is also being targeted, come after a week of deadly attacks on Turkish soldiers and police officers.
Turkey to take ‘necessary measures’ on border security – Davutoglu. Photo: Reuters
Turkey last week launched a two-pronged “anti-terror” cross-border offensive against IS group jihadists and PKK militants after a wave of violence in the country, pounding their positions with air strikes and artillery.
The renewed military campaign and the arrests targeting the PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state partly from camps in northern Iraq, has raised suspicions that Turkey’s real agenda is checking Kurdish territorial ambitions rather than fighting ISIS.
Ankara is concerned that the success in northern Syria of the Kurdish YPG militia, which has pushed back the IS group with the help of US-led air strikes, will stoke separatist sentiment among its own Kurds and embolden the PKK.
READ ALSO:Twin Bomb Blast In Turkey Kills 86, Leaves Scores Injured
Davutoglu made the comments in an interview broadcast live on Turkey’s ATV television, said that 50 to 60 of those detained are foreign nationals.
Turkey’s crackdown on suspected militants, in which the ultra-leftist DHKP-C group is also being targeted, come after a week of deadly attacks on Turkish soldiers and police officers.
Turkey to take ‘necessary measures’ on border security – Davutoglu. Photo: Reuters
Turkey last week launched a two-pronged “anti-terror” cross-border offensive against IS group jihadists and PKK militants after a wave of violence in the country, pounding their positions with air strikes and artillery.
The renewed military campaign and the arrests targeting the PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state partly from camps in northern Iraq, has raised suspicions that Turkey’s real agenda is checking Kurdish territorial ambitions rather than fighting ISIS.
Ankara is concerned that the success in northern Syria of the Kurdish YPG militia, which has pushed back the IS group with the help of US-led air strikes, will stoke separatist sentiment among its own Kurds and embolden the PKK.
READ ALSO:Twin Bomb Blast In Turkey Kills 86, Leaves Scores Injured
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