Ankara hardening anti-PKK strategy
Turkey's strategy against the Gulen movement has worked so well, Ankara looks to be extending it to eradicate the Kurdistan Workers Party as well.
It appears Ankara has decided not to bother with deterring the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and will instead go straight to eliminating the designated terrorist group.
Turkey is taking advantage of its new powers under the state of emergency declared after the failed coup July 15. The new "solution process" is much simpler than previous efforts. This time, it plans to totally wipe out the PKK and all its auxiliaries.
In March 2013 — not too long ago in the context of the solution process — Turkey launched a three-phase plan with the PKK: The PKK would withdraw from Turkey and give up its arms, and that action would be followed by normalization and full democracy.
But with the developments in northern Syria of the past two years, growing polarization in domestic politics and the violence that resumed in July 2015, the solution process was shelved. Urban warfare in southeast towns such as Diyarbakir, Cizre and Sirnak between October 2015 and March 2016 shifted back to rural areas after the PKK abandoned its trenches-barriers strategy in towns. Now almost daily we wake up to news of heavy clashes, terror acts and martyrs in the southeast.
