Turkey tense after deadly Kurdish ambush kills 15 soldiers

Istanbul, 7 September 2015 (MIA) - Tensions are high in Turkey after Kurdish guerrillas killed 15 soldiers in an ambush in the restive south-eastern part of the country. Prime Minister Ahmed Davutoglu called an emergency meeting of Government and military leaders on Sunday evening, while President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a firm response to the latest attack in the escalating war between Turkey and the PKK guerrillas.

Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters pelted the office of the Turkish Hurriyet daily, after the secularist daily published a tongue-in-cheek tweet about the killing of the soldiers. The daily connected an earlier statement President Erdogan made about the upcoming early elections with the attack. In the statement, Erdogan said that, if his AKP party wins the desired 400 seats in Parliament, the situation with the Kurdish insurgency will be different. Hurriyet claimed that this comment was a direct response to the latest ambush, which angered protesters who claimed the daily is twisting the President's words and making him appear to be campaigning off the attack.

A pro-Kurdish party won an unprecedented 13 percent of the vote in the general elections in June, while a nationalist movement that ranked third cut into the AKP support, making Prime Minister Davutoglu unable to form the new Government and prompting the need for early elections. As the AKP was negotiating to form a new Government, peace talks with the Kurds deteriorated, and fighting resumed, with Turkey even launching air attacks against Iraqi Kurdistan.