GENEVA /MOSCOW/ANKARA - The UN on Friday accused Turkish security forces of committing serious abuses during operations against Kurdish militants in southeast Turkey after a regional ceasefire collapsed in July 2015.
A report from the United Nations' rights office details evidence of "massive destruction, killings and numerous other serious human rights violations committed between July 2015 and December 2016 in southeast Turkey".
"Government security operations" have targeted more than 30 towns and displaced 355,000 to half a million people, mostly Kurds, the report said.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984, though the violence was contained during the truce agreed in 2013. But fighting resumed when the ceasefire fell apart in summer 2015.
Satellite images of areas affected by the latest unrest "indicate an enormous scale of destruction of the housing stock by heavy weaponry", the report said, with some neighbourhoods "razed to the ground".
In Cizre, a mainly Kurdish town on the Syrian border, residents described the devastation of neighbourhoods as "apocalyptic", the UN said.
In early 2016, nearly 200 of the town's residents, including children, "were trapped for weeks in basements without water, food, medical attention and power before being killed by fire, induced by shelling," it said.
The allegations come at a delicate time for Ankara, which is gearing up for an April referendum on whether to create an executive presidency that would expand President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers.
UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein criticised Erdogan's government directly, saying he was "particularly concerned by reports that no credible investigation has been conducted into hundreds of alleged unlawful killings."
"Not a single suspect was apprehended and not a single individual was prosecuted," Zeid said in a statement.
The UN rights office said it had been seeking access to areas affected by the anti-PKK operations for more than a year, but Erdogan's government had not approved a visit.
Zeid also denounced Ankara for challenging the "veracity" of the report's findings while refusing to give his investigators access.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict between the military and the PKK, which seeks greater rights and autonomy for Turkey's Kurdish minority. The insurgent group is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.
President Tayyip Erdogan sought to build cooperation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Friday over military operations in Syria, as Turkey attempts to create a border “safe zone” free of Islamic State and the Kurdish YPG militia.
Erdogan, referring to Islamic State’s remaining stronghold, told a joint Moscow news conference with the Russian President “Of course, the real target now is Raqqa”.
Turkey is seeking a role for its military in the advance on Raqqa, but the United States is veering towards enlisting the Kurdish YPG militia - something contrary to Ankara’s aim of banishing Kurdish fighters eastwards across the Euphrates river.
Turkey considers the YPG the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has been fighting an insurrection on Turkish soil for 30 years. Washington, like Ankara, considers the PKK a terrorist group, but it backs the YPG.
Russian-backed forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are also operating in the north of the country, close to Turkish borders. Washington and Moscow are concerned fast-moving military developments could lead to serious clashes between Turkish forces and the YPG.
“It should now be accepted that a terrorist organization cannot be defeated with another one,” Erdogan said, referring to the enlistment of YPG by the United States to fight Islamic State.
“As a country that has been battling terror for 35 years, terrorist organizations like Daesh (Islamic State), the YPG, Nusra front and others are organizations we face at all times.”
“We have kept all lines of communication open until now, and we will continue to do so from now on,” Erdogan said.
“Whether it is Turkey or Russia, we are working in full cooperation militarily in Syria. Our chiefs of staff, foreign ministers, and intelligence agencies cooperate intensely.”
The Turkish military said on Friday that 71 Kurdish militia fighters had been killed in Syria in the last week in what appeared to mark an escalation of clashes with the US-backed YPG group vying for control of areas along Turkey’s border. Including that 71, a total of 134 have been killed since Jan. 5.
Syrian state media quoted a military source late on Thursday as saying Turkey’s military had shelled Syrian government forces and their allies in northern Iraq, causing deaths and injuries.
State-run SANA news agency quoted the military source as saying that the Turkish bombardment targeted Syrian border guard positions in the countryside near the northern city of Manbij.
The area around Manbij has been controlled since last year by the Manbij Military Council, a local militia that is a part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella organisation of armed groups of which the YPG is also a part.
A broad crackdown by the Turkish authorities after a failed coup attempt last July has led to further abuses in the southeast, the report said.
Independent journalists have been harassed and Kurdish-language media outlets have been closed, making it even more difficult to publicise abuses committed during clashes.
Across Turkey in the wake of the attempted coup, more than 100,000 people including journalists have been dismissed or detained by the police, accused of links to coup-plotters and also to the PKK.
Zeid said he understood that Turkey faced difficult challenges in the aftermath of the attempted coup but warned that intensifying a crackdown on basic rights would only fuel further instability.