On July 17, Turkey was shaken by news of the assassination of a Turkish diplomat on duty abroad. The assassination may signal the opening of a new phase in the bloody 35-year-old conflict between Turkey and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey — along with several Western powers, including the United States — considers a terrorist organization.

Osman Kose — although not officially identified as associated with the Turkish intelligence agency but said to be on a special mission as a diplomat at Turkey’s consulate in northern Iraq’s Erbil — was assassinated inside of a high-class Turkish restaurant in Erbil with a silenced gun fired from short range.

Before Kose’s assassination, Turkish forces on June 27 killed Sulaimaniyah-born Diyar Gharib Muhammed — one of seven members of the PKK’s Central Committee. A Turkish F-16 struck his vehicle with the assistance of human intelligence provided by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) in the Kortek Bend area of Qandil in northern Iraq.

According to a security source in Ankara who refused to be identified, Gharib Muhammed was responsible for the PKK’s organization in Iraq, particularly at Sincar and more importantly for the logistics connections between Qandil in Iraq and Rojava in Syria. This was the first time since 1984 a senior PKK official was neutralized in their heartland of Qandil.