Kurdish militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) said they are ending a unilateral ceasefire they declared after Turkey was hit by two powerful earthquakes earlier this year, Agence France-Presse reported.
The announcement, carried by pro-Kurdish media on Tuesday, threatens to see a return of violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the PKK launched its fight for an autonomous state in Turkey’s southeast in 1984.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was re-elected for another five years last month, has intensified operations against the militant group and its offshoots in both Iraq and Syria.
A Kurdish militant umbrella organization that also includes the PKK said it was responding to Turkey’s renewed operations.
“The need for active struggle has become inevitable,” the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) said in a statement quoted by the pro-Kurdish Fırat news agency.
“We declare that we have called off the unilateral ceasefire as of today,” it said.
The February earthquakes, which claimed more than 50,000 lives, hit a region near where some of the heaviest fighting between Turkish government forces and the PKK took place.