Erdogan vows to intensify strikes on Kurd fighters in Iraq, Syria

ISTANBUL (AFP): Turkiye’s president on Wednesday vowed to intensify strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq.

Turkiye has been bombing sites in northeast Syria since Thursday, hitting civilian and military targets and infrastructure and causing casualties, according to Kurdish authorities.

“We have already intensified air operations and we will continue, and show the terrorists that we can destroy them anywhere and at any moment,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, referring to fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

Ankara has said that it launched a new wave of air strikes in retaliation for an attack in Ankara earlier this month that wounded two security personnel.

PKK has claimed responsibility for the attack, the first bombing to hit the Turkish capital since 2016.

In the statement, he also said Israel is not conducting itself “like a state” in the Gaza Strip, as Israel pounded the territory after a Hamas onslaught.

“Israel should not forget that if it acts more like an organization rather than a state, it’ll finish by being treated as such,” Erdogan said, attacking “shameful methods” of the Israeli army in the densely-populated Gaza Strip.

“Bombing civilian sites, killing civilians, blocking humanitarian aid and trying to present these as achievements are the acts of an organization and not a state,” he said.

Erdogan usually uses the word “organization” when he refers to the PKK.

“We think that a war should have an ethic and that both parties should respect it. Unfortunately, this principle is gravely violated in Israel and in Gaza,” he said, denouncing the “murders of civilians on Israeli territory” and “the blind massacre of innocents in a Gaza subjected to constant bombardment.”