Turkey wants support in anti-PKK fight, says spokesman

ISTANBUL

Turkey wants to see the same determination shown against Daesh by the international community to be extended to the PKK.

This was according to Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, speaking to reporters in Ankara on Wednesday.

Claiming that it was wrong to differentiate between some terror groups as being “good” or “bad,” Kalin added: “Developing a policy from this point of view is wrong, both diplomatically and morally.”

Kalin said that apart from fight against Daesh “we have a fight against the terror organization called the PKK”.

The PKK – considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and EU – resumed its armed campaign in late July.

Since then, around 195 members of the security forces have been martyred while more than 1,700 terrorists have been killed, according to official figures.

Commenting on Iraqi-Turkish relations, Kalin said that Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had already announced that he would visit Baghdad.

“We do not have a problem on making contact with Iraq,” Kalin said.

The deployment of military trainers to Bashiqa, near Mosul in northern Iraq, has caused a diplomatic spat between Ankara and Baghdad.

The Turkish military presence in northern Iraq is part of “planned training”, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told Anadolu Agency earlier on Wednesday.

Baghdad insists the forces be withdrawn while the Turkish government has said the troops are merely part of a routine rotation of a training program for Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

Kalin said that there were efforts to turn the issue into a crisis, but those were “on shaky ground”.

The presidential spokesman also spoke about the Russian warplane shot down by Turkey on Nov. 24, which escalated tension between Ankara and Moscow.

“More than 90 percent of Russian assaults [in Syria] targeted mainly moderate Syrian opposition and civilians,” Kalin said: “Only 9-10 percent directly hit Daesh.”

While a U.S.-led coalition against Daesh conducts airstrikes in the region, Russia continues to carry out an independent air campaign in Syria.