ANKARA, Turkey, May 4 (UPI) -- The rise in the number of attacks by Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey is renewing concerns about the sincerity of Kurdish leaders in Iraq, officials said.
Attacks by the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party have been on the rise as spring weather opens passages in their mountainous safe havens in southern Turkey and northern Iraq. The fighting season also coincides with a scheduled visit to the region by Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq.
Sedat Laciner, a security analyst at Turkey's International Strategic Research Organization, told the English-language newspaper Hurriyet, that a trilateral plan to tackle the PKK issue by Iraqi, U.S. and Turkish officials was a cause for confidence.
"Optimism is in the air for the first time because the parties are working seriously and taking concrete measures against the PKK," he said.
Washington, Baghdad, Ankara and others classify the PKK as a terrorist organization.
Retired Turkish Maj. Gen. Armagan Kuloglu said, however, that the Kurdish government in northern Iraq was failing in its regional security obligations.
"Northern Iraq is not doing enough to combat the PKK," he said.
Barzani travels to Ankara later this month.
