PKK's senior militant leader challenges Turkey

Turkey's army is welcome to attempt to destroy the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) but it is unlikely to succeed, a senior leader of the outlawed militant group claimed.

"Now that they want to destroy us with war, let them do so. If they can do it, come on down. They [the Turkish government] believe that they can destroy us by trusting their developed intelligence opportunities and high technologies. Let them be our guests," Murat Karay?lan, a PKK leader based in the Kandil mountains of northern Iraq, said in an interview with the F?rat News Agency (ANF). 

Commenting on PKK attacks on Turkish security forces over the past 15 days and the airstrikes the Turkish army has conducted on PKK base camps in northern Iraq since July 24, Karay?lan said the movement's militants were acting in self-defense.

"[The militants] are conducting their retaliation acts within the framework of self-defense, but a process has started and this will get even deeper. Our total defense process will be put on the agenda against a total war [by the government]," Karay?lan said. 

Karay?lan said the Turkish government had declared a one-sided total war on their movement on July 24, with the start of the Turkish army's airstrikes, adding that it was clear the Turkish side had broken a three-year cease-fire. 

He added that it was "dishonest" for the Turkish government to highlight the killings of two police officers in their shared home in the southeastern district of Ceylanp?nar on July 22 as the reason to start the military airstrikes. 

"Everybody knows that [Deputy PM] Bülent Ar?nç said 'hard days await them; they will see,' only 15 days before [the airstrikes started]. In other words, they had taken a decision before and made preparations,"...