Turkey’s Erdogan signals deadly attack won’t derail opening to Kurdish dialogue
The Turkish president said the deadly attack on a defense firm outside Ankara targeted a new political climate in the country.
ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled on Monday that a Kurdish militant group’s deadly attack on a major defense company last week will not derail Ankara’s efforts to introduce dialogue to end an armed conflict that has consumed the country for 40 years.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging an armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984, claimed responsibility for the Oct. 23 attack in Ankara on TUSAS, a state-run aerospace and defense company. Five people, in addition to the two attackers, were killed in the attack on the headquarters.
“It’s particularly telling that this bloody and treacherous act of terrorism came as an era of a different political climate is emerging in our country’s politics,” Erdogan said in a televised speech after a cabinet meeting in Ankara.
“Whenever clenched fists are opened, terrorism immediately steps in,” Erdogan added. “We will not stand idly and watch the same scenario being staged again.”
