Militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) attacked the Hakkari Dağlıca military base in Turkey's far east with machine guns and mortar shells on the night of June 29. The Turkish military said the assailants fled when soldiers returned fire, and no casualties were reported. (Today's Zaman) That same day, the Turkish military clashed with Kurdish villagers in Roboski, also in the country's southeast near the border with Iraq and Syria. At least two villagers were wounded in the clashes, which started when local Kurds gathered to protest amassing of Turkish forces in the area. (Revolution News)

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called a meeting of his National Security Council (MGK) June 29—being widely portrayed in the Turkish media as preparation to establish a "buffer zone" in northern Syria in response to Kurdish territorial gains against ISIS. Over the weekend, Erdogan told reporters: "I am saying this to the whole world: We will never allow the establishment of a state on our southern border in the north of Syria. We will continue our fight in that respect whatever the cost may be." Turkish newspapers including the pro-government Yeni Safak are reporting that the military has received orders to seize a strip 110 kilometers long and 33 kilometers deep along the border. One anonymous official told Hurriyet Daily News there is a "need" to "prevent more clashes between the ISIL and the Kurdish forces led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), prevent the PYD from taking full control over the Turkish-Syrian border and create a safe zone against a new wave of refugees on Syrian territory, no longer in Turkey." The PYD is the Kurdish political party whose military wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), have been making gains against ISIS.

Talk about "No good deed goes unpunished." Now that the Kurds of Rojava (northern Syria) are nearly within striking distance of Raqqa, the ISIS de facto capital, charges are mounting of a campaign of ethnic cleansing by Kurdish forces against Arabs and Assyrians. BBC News on June 15 reported the welcome development that the Kurdish-led People's Protection Units (YPG) have taken the border town of Tal Abyad from ISIS. From here it is a straight shot of less than 100 kilometers down a major road to Raqqa (see map). The report says that more than 16,000 residents have fled the Tal Abyad area into Turkey—but only says they have fled the fighting, not targeted attacks by the YPG.

Thousands of jubilant Kurds flooded the streets of Diyarbakir, southeast Turkey, on June 7, setting off fireworks and waving flags as election results showed the pro-Kurdish opposition likely to enter parliament for the first time. Initial results show the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) taking 80 of 550 seats—a major setback for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose AK Party is poised to lose its majority. Erdogan had been counting on the AKP majority to push through constitutional changes giving him broad executive powers. The elections also brought three Armenians to the Turkish parliament after a lapse of several years—one from the HDP, one from the AKP, and one from the Republican People's Party (CHP). Two members of Turkey's small Yazidi community were also elected on  the HDP ticket.

Nine Turkish miners who survived last year's Soma mining disaster face six years in prison for violating the law restricting demonstrations and damaging property during a protest to demand that the bodies of their co-workers be extracted from the mine. The protestors are alleged to have blocked a road and damaged a passing vehicle at a protest to demand justice over the disaster, in which 301 miners died in an explosion on May 13, 2014. The trial for the Soma disaster opened on April 13, during which the 45 suspects, including the eight former managers from the Soma Coal Mine Company denied charges of "killing with probable criminal intent," precipitating anger among the families of the victims.

Over the past two months, the ISIS international franchise has made foreboding gains from West Africa to the Indian subcontinent. In Nigeria, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to ISIS in March, according to the anti-terrorist monitoring group SITE. The pledge, attributed to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, was made in an audio posted on Twitter (and since removed). "We announce our allegiance to the Caliph... and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity," SITE quoted the statement. (Al Jazeera, March 8) 

Turkey and the Kurdish rebel movement on Feb. 28 announced a landmark political deal that calls for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to lay down arms. The news came in a joint press conference with senior cabinet ministers and Kurdish leaders of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), where they conveyed a call by imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan for a congress this spring to discuss the group's disarmament. "This is a historic declaration of will to replace armed struggle with democratic politics," said the HDP's Sırrı Sureyya Onder. The Union of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), the PKK-aligned civil organization in Turkey's east, also issued a statement in support of the call for a peace process in the region. Some 40,000 people have lost their lives since 1984 when the PKK launched its armed struggle.

Hundreds of Turkish troops in armored vehicles crossed into northern Syria Feb. 22—apparently to evacuate forces guarding an historic tomb, demolishing it, and moving the remains to a different site. The remains of Suleyman Shah were moved to a location in Syria closer to the border, and a Turkish flag raised at the new burial site near Esmesi (Aleppo governorate). Turkey considers the site sovereign territory, so it is unclear if it has now abandoned claims to the previous site and transfered them to the new one. The Damascus regime (which has long since lost control over the north) condemned the incursion as "flagrant aggression," saying Turkey had informed its Istanbul consulate of the operation but not waited for Syria's consent. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his armed forces had carried out a "successful operation which is beyond all kinds of appreciation." Ominously, the column of Turkish armor swept through the border city of Kobani on its way to the site—an unsubtle message to the autonomist Kurdish fighters there. (BBC News)