Female fighters from a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) camp walk during a news conference in the remote Qandil mountains near the Iraq-Turkish border in Sulaimaniya, 330 km (205 miles) northeast of Baghdad, August 13, 2010.
Kurdish insurgents said they are prepared to reignite a guerrilla conflict within Turkey and have accused Ankara of waging a proxy war against their forces by funding Islamist insurgents in Syria.
Speaking with Reuters, a leading member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said the group was prepared to cross Iraq’s northern border into Turkey unless the government agreed to a series of demands.
“Either they accept deep and meaningful negotiations with the Kurdish movement, or there will be a civil war in Turkey,” the PKK’s Cemil Bayik told Reuters.
The ongoing civil war in Syria has muddled efforts to end three decades of fighting between the Turkish government and Kurdish insurgents, which has claimed approximately 40,000 lives.
[Reuters]