Turkey requests NATO meeting over airstrikes, security threats

ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey on Sunday called for a meeting of its NATO allies to discuss threats to its security and its airstrikes targeting Islamic State militants in Syria and Kurdish rebels in Iraq.

The move came as Turkey’s state-run media reported that Turkish F-16 jets again took off from the country’s southeastern Diyarbakir air base to hit Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, targets across the border in northern Iraq.

There was no immediate confirmation of the report by TRT television, which came hours after authorities said PKK militants detonated a car bomb near Diyarbakir, killing two soldiers and wounding four others.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Turkey would inform allies about the airstrikes, which followed an IS suicide bombing near Turkey’s border with Syria that left 32 people dead, and an IS attack on Turkish forces, which killed a soldier.

Turkey requested the meeting, which includes ambassadors of all 28 member countries, “in view of the seriousness of the situation after the heinous terrorist attacks in recent days,” NATO said.

NATO itself is not involved in operations against the Islamic State group, although many of its members are. As an alliance, however, NATO is committed to helping defend Turkey.

Turkey has simultaneously bombed Islamic State group positions near its border with Syria and Kurdish insurgents in northern Iraq. It has also carried out widespread police operations against suspected Kurdish and IS militants and other outlawed groups inside Turkey. Hundreds of people have been detained.

Tensions flared with the Kurds following the IS suicide bombing, as Kurdish groups blamed the government for not doing enough to prevent IS operations. On Wednesday, PKK claimed responsibility for the killing of two policemen in the Kurdish majority city of Sanliurfa.

PKK has said Turkey’s airstrikes likely spell the end of a cease-fire announced in 2013.

The PKK has fought Turkey for autonomy for Kurds in a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1984. The Kurds are an ethnic group with their own language living in a region spanning present-day Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia.