ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Ankara has completed its military op against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels in Turkey’s southeastern town of Cizre, its Interior Minister has announced. Hundreds of Kurds were killed in the fighting, including some 60 people trapped in a basement. “The operations in Cizre were completed in a very successful fashion,” Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala told local media without going into details, Reuters reports. “The curfew will continue for a while longer. There are traps and mines in certain areas that could harm people. Closing the ditches and removing barricades will take a bit of time,” he added. Last week, Ala said the operation was “99.5 percent complete” and would not be expanded. Turkey launched its military operation in the southeastern part of the country in July of 2015, breaking a ceasefire signed in 2013. Turkish security forces entered a number of Kurdish settlements in armored vehicles to take on PKK fighters, but civilians were caught up in the conflict as well ...

MUNICH, Germany: Moscow warned Thursday that any move by Gulf nations to send in troops to support the rebels in Syria would risk a “new world war.” It also said that it had made a “quite specific” cease-fire proposal for Syria as foreign ministers gathered in Munich, hoping to revive a floundering peace process amid warnings of a “new world war.” Meanwhile, a Saudi source said a new Saudi-led coalition to fight “terrorism” in Islamic countries will gather in the kingdom next month for its first publicly announced meeting. This development came days after the kingdom, which backs some of the rebels that Moscow is helping to defeat, has floated the idea of sending ground troops to help the U.S. effort against Daesh (ISIS). This was criticized by Russian premier Dmitry Medvedev, who said, “The Americans and our [Arab] partners must think hard about this: Do they want a permanent war?” he told Germany’s Handelsblatt daily. “We made propositions for a cease-fire that are quite specific,” R...