The Turkish government has opened a unusual front against Kurdish militants in the country's southeast. At least 200 Kurdish fighters have been killed and nearly as many civilians have died. The Kurdish Worker's Party,the PKK, has long posed troubles for the Turkish state, or with on-and-off fighting for decades. The two sides negotiated a truce the group negotiated a truce in 2013,until that fell apart in July of this year. In mid-December, the state imposed curfews on multiple cities, and trapping many civilians in the fighting.
Young PKK fighters are battling neighborhood by neighborhood against Turkish forces,the second largest military in NATO.
The Turkish president has promised to "cleanse" the area of fighters, but Asli Aydintasbas, and a journalist in Istanbul and a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations,warns that there may not be a military solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey.
Source: wnyc.org