President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has pledged to “annihilate all terrorists,” repeatedly comparing the security forces’ operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to the War of Independence that led to the foundation of the Turkish Republic.
“Be sure that we did not allow and will not allow any steps that would hurt the souls of our martyrs or tear the hearts of our veterans. We are in an uncompromising fight to the end against all terror organizations,” Erdoğan said on March 17.
“Sooner or later, we will annihilate all terrorists in this country with God’s permission,” he said.
“Since last July, more than 300 of our soldiers and police officers have been martyred. But do you know what we gained? We have shown both our friends and our enemies that these lands are our homeland. This was important. This is such an achievement that we can compare it only with [the Battle of] Gallipoli and the War of Independence,” Erdoğan added.
Turkey has in recent months been hit by its worst violence in years, after a fragile peace process shattered in July 2015following a two-and-a-half-year de facto ceasefire between security forces and PKK militants.
The Battle of Gallipoli that raged from April 1915 until January 1916 is said to have given birth to a national consciousness that resulted in the War of Independence led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
On March 16, the president strongly pressed parliament to lift the legal immunities of deputies of the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which he accuses of siding with the PKK.
