PKK co-leader refutes Turkey's casualty claims

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Nealry three weeks of fighting with Turkey has left hundreds of government troops dead and killed 30 members of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK),  including eight civilians in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, the PKK co-leader claimed on Friday.

“In the last 19 days of war against the Turkish army, 250 Turkish soldiers were killed and we have 30 martyrs, including eight civilians who were killed in Zargali village,” said Murat Karayilan, PKK co-leader and top commander, referring to a community at the base of the Qandil Mountains that was bombed on August 1.

He accused Turkish government of breaking a peace deal with Kurds and said the Islamic State's battles against Kurds in Syria was a proxy war the extremists had been fighting on behalf of Turkey.

“In 2013, Turkey announced a peace deal in Northern Kurdistan [Turkey], but it started war through ISIS in Western Kurdistan [Syria],” he said.   

Karayilan denied earlier claims by Turkish officials that at least 390 PKK rebels have been killed and 400 wounded in the attacks.

On Friday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in speech televised by Rudaw, warned that any insurgency would be dealt with without mercy.

Without mentioning him by name, Erdogan insinuated that People’s Democratic Party (HDP) co-leader Selahattin Demirtas had an outlawed group behind him.

He referred to Demirtas as a composer who leads the PKK orchestra.

Also on Friday, Turkish media reported that five Turkish police officers were killed and six wounded in clashes with PKK rebels in Turkey’s southeastern Hakkari province.

Tensions have been high since the Turkish crackdown began late last month, with nationwide sweeps and deadly Turkish air raids in the Qandil Mountains and in Turkey’s southeastern ethnically Kurdish regions.

The latest hostilities shattered a shaky peace process between Ankara and the PKK that was meant to end a three-decade insurgency in which 40,000 people have died.