Turks Launch New Cross-Border Strikes, Seek NATO Support

ANKARA, Turkey — Fighting a new wave of violence from both radical Islamists in Syria and restive Kurds at home and in Iraq since July 20, the Turkish military launched new airstrikes Sunday against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq.
 
The Ankara government also has invoked an article in NATO’s charter to call a meeting of the alliance in support of its military campaign against ISIS and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). 
 
The Turkish campaign has targeted both ISIS and PKK targets across its borders with Syria and Iraq. Airstrikes have been supported with artillery. In the latest strikes, Turkish F-16 fighters took off from an air base in Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey and headed toward PKK bases in northern Iraq.
      
The Turkish Army earlier blamed PKK militants for a deadly car bomb attack that killed two soldiers in the Kurdish-dominated southeast. 
       
On July 24, the Turkish military launched its campaign against ISIS targets in Syria but then expanded it to PKK rebels in neighboring northern Iraq who are themselves bitterly opposed to the jihadists.
       
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu ordered the campaign after a week of violence in Turkey that began July 20 with a suicide bombing blamed on ISIS in a town close to the Syrian border that killed 32. On July 21, ISIS militants shot dead a Turkish noncommissioned officer and injured two. 
    
Meanwhile, Turkey, NATO’s only majority Muslim member, called a meeting of ambassadors of NATO states for July 28 to discuss the violence and its military operations, NATO and the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced.
       
Ankara invoked a clause from NATO’s founding treaty that allows any member to request a meeting of all 28 NATO ambassadors "whenever, in the opinion of any of them, their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened."
       
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