Claim: Ceasefire with PKK breaks down after Suruc attack

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Claim: Ceasefire with PKK breaks down after Suruc attack

2015-12-22 12:34 GMT
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Al Jazeera reports ceasefire with Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) breaks down after Suruc attack

PKK fired civilian buses on 11 July 2015

On 21 December 2015, Al Jazeera reported that the ceasefire between Turkish forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)1 breaks down following the DAESH suicide bomb attack on Kurdish youth activists in the town of Suruc.

"Turkey has been involved in a fast-escalating conflict with the PKK since a ceasefire broke down in July following an ISIL suicide bomb attack on Kurdish youth activists in the town of Suruc, bordering the Syrian town of Kobane," read the news story.

However, it was the PKK which announced the annulment of the ceasefire before the Suruc attack. The Suruc attack, a DAESH suicide bombing against young Kurdish activists working to deliver aid to the besieged Syrian border town of Kobani, took place on 20 July 2015, in Sanliurfa, Turkey. The bombing killed 33 people and injured 104.2

The annulment of the ceasefire was announced by the the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the PKK's umbrella group, on 11 July 2015. Shortly after that, the PKK raided a civilian bus, killed one person and wounded two on 12 July 2015.3 The militant organization also set on fire three trailer trucks.4 Furthermore, on 15 July 2015, Bese Hozat, the co-chair of the KCK Executive Council, wrote on PKK’s media Ozgur Gundem that the time has come for a "revolutionary public war"5 against Turkish forces.