Turkish troops killed 21 terrorists in clashes in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border on Wednesday, security sources said. At least 100 PKK terrorists were believed to have taken part in the attacks, which targeted eight locations. Turkish commandos reportedly crossed the border into northern Iraq in pursuit of the terrorists after the attack, which occurred in the early morning hours of Wednesday.

There were reportedly intermittent clashes between the troops, who advanced some three to four kilometers into Iraqi territory and the PKK terrorists in the border area near Çukurca in Hakkari province. PKK members have been using Iraq as a launching pad for attacks on Turkish targets in a war for autonomy in Turkey´s Southeast.

The private Cihan news agency says Turkish warplanes that took off from Diyarbakır are striking PKK bases in northern Iraq. Turkey´s Parliament recently passed a bill extending permission, as it has done several times since 2007, for the Turkish military to mount cross-border operations against members of the PKK in northern Iraq in the coming year. Turkish air and artillery operations against suspected PKK members in the Kandil Mountains have intensified since August. The strikes were ordered after a break of more than a year in retaliation for an increase in PKK attacks on security forces inside Turkey. In the early morning hours of Wednesday terrorists attacked several military and police buildings in Çukurca and Hakkari´s city center. Twenty-four soldiers and police officers were killed. Another 18 soldiers were wounded when the terrorists opened fire on military outposts in Çukurca and Yüksekova near the border with Iraq. The attacks occurred simultaneously.

It was the deadliest PKK attack in 18 years. It was the fourth deadliest attack since the PKK started its campaign of separatist violence nearly three decades ago.

The attacks come only a day after five policemen and four civilians, including a 2-year-old and a 10-year-old, were killed by a roadside bomb planted by the PKK in nearby Bitlis province. Wednesday’s attacks also come only days after Turkish President Abdullah Gül visited troops in the region to boost morale in an area that has seen increased violence in recent months.

Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel and force commanders travelled to Hakkari after the news of the soldiers’ deaths. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was scheduled to leave the country on Wednesday for an official visit to Kazakhstan, cancelled his trip. There are reports that Erdoğan will also go to Hakkari.

Erdoğan called an emergency meeting at the Prime Ministry after the attacks. Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ, Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahim, Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan are attending the meeting. Turkey’s top officials cancelled their travel plans to attend the emergency meeting.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu also cancelled a planned trip to Serbia on Wednesday, while Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek cancelled a scheduled trip to the US. Arınç, who was on a visit to Macedonia, cut his trip short and returned to Ankara, the Anatolia news agency reported on Wednesday. Science, Industry and Technology Minister Nihat Ergün was also among the ministers canceling trips and communicating with the government in Ankara as he cancelled a visit to the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland, scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Although Turkish EU Affairs Minister and chief negotiator Egemen Bağış was not at Wednesday’s emergency meeting, he called off a trip to the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir, where he was set to attend a meeting on the province’s EU progress, and met instead with the head of the EU Delegation to Turkey, Ambassador Marc Pierini. The details of the meeting were not made public, but Bağış was expected to discuss Turkey’s concerns over the funding the PKK is receiving from sources within EU member countries.

Parliament on Thursday will hold an emergency session to discuss new measures against the PKK, Deputy Prime Minister Bozdağ announced after Wednesday’s terrorism summit.

PKK terrorist activities have been a central concern for Turkish governments since the organization took up arms in 1984 and waged a bloody war for autonomy, which has cost more than 40,000 lives in almost three decades. Despite fitful cease-fires, the terrorist organization organizes attacks from its bases in northern Iraq and as of July stepped up its attacks, which have claimed the lives of dozens of security personnel as well many civilians.

İbrahim Güçlü, a Kurdish politician and the founder of the Rights and Freedoms Party (HAK-PAR), believes the PKK is at a crossroads. “It will either finish, kill itself and end what its doing, or it will declare a safe haven and establish its own sovereignty in that zone.”

Güçlü said things look bleak for the PKK because the “deep state,” shady and illegal elements inside the Turkish state, which he said founded of the PKK, has also come to an end. “The group that established the PKK is near its end. The deep state set it up, and now the deep state itself is dying.”

He also said he didn’t believe the PKK will never lay down arms, noting the hope thereof would be no more than wishful thinking. “Because PKK can’t exist without guns,” he said.

The recent attack in Hakkari’s Çukurca district that killed 24 Turkish soldiers could have a positive affect in the long run in that it has the potential to “bring everyone to their senses.” He said terrorism in Turkey is a profound social problem that goes significantly deeper than just being a security issue.

Güçlü said the mentality of Ergenekon, a clandestine network whose suspected members currently stand trial for trying to overthrow the government, is the mentality of the “deep state.” He said this worldview was rearing its head once again. He said the nationalist elements within the deep state were pointing at the terrorists attacks and saying “we were right,” in their criticism of the government’s liberal Kurdish policies.

Güçlü said the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) should act with restraint at this stage and be able to talk to its voters, the 50 percent of the electorate that brought it to power.

He said the PKK’s recent attacks could also intimidate Kurds to the extent that they will fear voicing their opposition to the group’s policies.

Fehmi Demir, the deputy chief of HAK-PAR, expressed his opinion that there is nothing the PKK can hope to gain with its attacks. Like Güçlü, Demir also believes that there are shady groups behind the PKK. “I think the deep state is still active in the region. Their influence has something to do with the recent PKK attacks as well. The attackers are the groups who don’t want a solution to the Kurdish question and who want the country to be in a state of chaos.”

He said the country experienced a positive atmosphere after the June 12 general elections, but tension rose with large-scale operations against the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that encompasses the PKK and other legal and illegal structures affiliated with it. Demir said the PKK’s end to a cease fire over the summer had also contributed to the tension. He said violence has never helped anyone. “This is why we have said that the guns should be silenced. We have always emphasized that they should allow democratic solutions to work, but unfortunately none of the public opinion leaders, both those of ours and of society, responded to this. The situation has gotten worse.”

Demir also said he didn’t know what the PKK was aiming for with its recent attacks, but said they did not serve he Kurdish people in anyway. “We are of the opinion that democratic rights that have been afforded to Kurds have annoyed some. Some segments are consciously sabotaging the process.”

He said the PKK and the Kurdish issue were different things and had to be differentiated as such. “The PKK is one of the consequences of the Kurdish question of course, but the Kurdish question is something more comprehensive, more expansive. It is impossible to say in this context that the PKK’s attacks are contributing to a solution of the Kurdish problem. For the love of God, what does the PKK want now? Does it want an independent state, a federation? Its demands don’t match its actions.” He said the lack of congruency between the PKK’s aims and actions added to suspicions that the PKK is acting on behalf of groups that have different interests.

In Bitlis’ Güroymak district, whose Kurdish name is Norşin, where nine people, five of whom were police officers, died in a PKK attack last week, the residents are weary of the PKK and want them to be stopped.

Area residents hung Turkish flags from their shop and home windows, following another PKK attack on Wednesday in Hakkari that killed 24 Turkish soldiers.

Nurettin Mutlu, who is in charge of a complex that includes a historical medrese  -- schools that previously taught Islamic teachings along with secular sciences -- says the area people have been increasingly frustrated with the PKK’s attacks. “Only education can beat ignorance. That’s the only way we can render these dirty games being played futile.

Cemil İlk, head of the Güroymak Chamber of Retailers and Artisans, says many people in the city visit vigil tents put up for the five police officers killed in last week’s attack. Many in Güroymak knew the dead personally. “We as a district don’t want to be associated with terrorism, but with our spirituality,” he said. He said the people planned to march against terrorism, but then gave up, fearing that this might be wrongly understood by some segments. He also said people started flying flags on their own, without an organized effort.

Kemal Burkay, the Kurdish writer and poet who returned from a three-decade long exile in Sweden that began shortly after the 1980 coup d’état, told the Akşam daily that the PKK was sabotaging dialogue and efforts towards a solution. He also said that the Kurds are increasingly turning against the PKK. “More Kurds are saying that the PKK should lay down its arms. Like Turks are talking about other measures, about winning over Kurdish citizens, Kurds are also questioning and more vocally expressing the opinion that the Kurdish question cannot be solved with the use of violence.”

He said the Kurdish community was irritated by the escalation in the PKK’s separatist violence, because the attacks come at a time when the government was offering new policies and a new dialogue had begun. “Diyarbakır [Peace and Democracy Party (BDP)] Mayor Osman Baydemir said the time for using guns has passed,” but [PKK leader] Abdullah Öcalan scolded him, asking him who he thought he was. “Baydemir is no ordinary figure, he is a symbolic figure. If someone like him is saying that the time of guns has passed, that can’t be his opinion alone. I believe that many others inside the BDP feel the same, but can’t say it out loud.” Burkay said young Kurds were posting messages on the Internet, addressing the PKK using the slogan “Don’t kill for us.” “These are significant indicators,” Burkay said.

In Batman, a southeastern Kurdish dominated province, 72 civil society organizations made a joint statement against the recent PKK attacks at the Batman Bar Associations office. Representative of the organizations also apologized to all of humanity for their failure to stop the violence. A similar statement came from Şanlıurfa, another southeastern province, where the city’s Bar Association president released a statement on Friday calling for an end to violence. Thirty-two civil society groups in Bitlis in a joint press statement condemned the attacks and called on the government to continue its democratization program without any comprises.

In Ankara, 13 professional unions led by the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB), visited Prime Minsiter Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. TOBB President Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu here made a joint statement made by 13 of Turkey’s largest Professional organizations, which condemned terrorism.

Also across the country’s mosques, imams in their Friday sermons talked on the theme of martyrdom and about those fallen while fighting to protect their country in line with recommendations from the Religious Affairs Directorate. Imams also condemned Wednesday’s attacks in their Friday sermons.