PKK terrorists killed 24 Turkish soldiers and injured 18 in simultaneous attacks in southeast Turkey last night.
Turkish public is outraged and the reactions are getting harsher both against the government and the army. This is one of the bloodiest nights that I've ever witnessed in Turkey's decades-long war on separatist terrorism.
Ankara is on high alert. The first reaction of President Abdullah Gül is interesting. He began his remarks by saying that "the whole world must know that we will prevail in the war on terrorism."
This is an obvious reference to the "foreign hand" thesis. After Turkey's relations soured with Syria and Israel, there were several pieces in the media, suggesting that both of these countries may use PKK terrorism as a leverage. Of course, Iran, with its territories just a few hundreds kilometers away from where the PKK attacked last night, is another usual suspect, according to many Turks.
The timing of PKK's latest attack is especially significant, as it came on the same day that the Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu met the Syrian opposition officially for the first time and the Hamas prisoners who were exiled after the swap deal with Israel arrived in Ankara. Moreover, the Turkish parliament was about to begin debating the new constitution today.
