Days of terror

摘要

Is it a return to the bad old days? The question preys on the minds of Turks and Kurds alike, as violence escalates between Kurdish PKK rebels and the army in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeastern provinces. On July 18th four Turkish soldiers were killed when the PKK detonated a bomb in Hakkari, right next to Iraq. They were the latest victims in a series of attacks that have claimed nearly 150 lives, including 37 civilians, since the PKK ended its truce on June 1st last year. Turkey's deputy chief of the general staff, Ilker Basbug, promised this week that the violence was containable. The PKK no longer enjoys widespread support among Kurdish villagers, over a million of whom were forcibly evicted by the army during its scorched-earth campaign against the terrorists in the 1990S. Iran and Syria have stopped arming and hosting the PKK, in hopes of wooing Turkey. But the PKK has spread itself further into northern Iraq.