Duran Kalkan who is also a prominent member of the PKK’s military council said the guerrillas would soon take part in what he described as “the Kurdish spring” in Turkey.
“The guerrillas have not participated in the clashes but this spring will become the Kurdish uprising,” Kalkan was quoted by PKK media outlets Thursday in reference to the ongoing armed standoff in Turkey’s Kurdish cities.
PKK has repeatedly accused the Turkish government of waging an indiscriminate war against the civilian population in Kurdish areas although Ankara has said it is currently clashing with the armed members of the PKK inside the Kurdish cities.
The army has said it killed over 900 guerrillas since fighting broke out after a two-year ceasefire collapsed last July.
PKK, however, rejects the death toll announced by Ankara and says over 150 civilians have been killed in the attacks, a claim also largely supported by international rights groups which have slammed the government for human rights breaches.
Kalkan said PKK had already warned Ankara that if the military operation continued, there would be “a wider response by the public.”
“We have warned them that the Kurdish youths will organize new resistance groups and fight the army,” Kalkan said.
Cizire and several Kurdish towns and cities have been under round the clock siege and curfew over the past months with most civilians without running water and adequate electricity.
Shocking images were circulating on social media earlier in February of dead bodies of children who were placed in iceboxes as families apparently waited for proper funerals after curfews had been lifted.
The Turkish government announced on February 11 it had lifted parts of the curfews in Kurdish cities including in Cizire Botan.
