Turkey holds no quarter for PKK

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ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Turkish military forces must stay on the offensive in their fight against armed Kurdish separatists to secure the population, an analyst said.

At least a dozen members of the Turkish military and police were killed in recent attacks blamed in the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, known by its Kurdish initials PKK.

Armored vehicles and helicopters were sent on the offensive in the wake of the attacks. Suleyman Ozeren, director of Turkey's International Terrorism and Transnational Crime Research Center, told newspaper Today's Zaman the offensive was needed to keep people safe.

"The state earned the trust of people at the local level by showing that it can protect their lives and their assets against a bloody terror organization," he said. "Now it has to reinforce that feeling by keeping up this offensive."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was cited by the BBC as saying 500 members of the PKK were "rendered ineffective" by military forces within the last month.

The U.S. military has conducted surveillance operations over PKK strongholds along Iraq's northern border using unmanned drones. Today's Zaman reports drone activity isn't exclusive to the PKK, however.