Ankara Bombing Shows Turkey’s War Fueling Blowback Beyond Kurdish Southeast

PM: 'Almost Certain' PKK Behind Latest Attack

by Jason Ditz, 

Monday’s massive car bombing in the Turkish capital of Ankara, the second such bombing in three weeks, is being loudly blamed on the Kurdish PKK by ruling officials, hoping to parlay it into increasing support for their ever-escalating war against the Kurdish southeast.

Yet if the claims hold true, it reflects a big problem for the Turkish government, that their war against the Kurdish separatists is fueling some pretty major blowback outside of the southeast, and the Erdogan government’s gleeful escalation into Kurdish territory, as well as attacksagainst Kurdish areas in Iraq, aren’t making Ankara any safer.

Turkey has no shortage of security woes, with a long border with ISIS, war against seemingly every Kurdish group in the region, and a Marxist-Leninist group that launches its own bombing attacks from time to time.

The car bombings show an increasing scale of such attacks in Turkey, and have security analysts expressing concern that Turkey is going the way of Iraq and Syria, with huge bombings and civilian casualties just part of daily life.

As Turkish officials continue to hype the threat, their lack of a realistic response is all the more glaring, as abandoning the ceasefire has made Turkey a dangerous place indeed, and the government’s only answer is to keep doubling down on that mistake.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/03/14/ankara-bombing-shows-turkeys-war-fueling-blowback-beyond-kurdish-southeast/