Turkey On The Brink Of Civil War

John Beck, VICE News: 'There Will Be a Civil War in Turkey': Welcome to Cizre, the 'Center of Kurdish Resistance'

The trenches have been dug in Cizre. Several feet wide and paired with mounds of earth and torn-up building material, they appeared blocking roads in this Kurdish enclave in southeastern Turkey after Ankara launched an intensive air campaign against the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in July.

Children play on them during daylight hours. But at night, when police move in, they're patrolled by groups of armed youths, who attempt to repel these official incursions in fierce clashes that have left at least one dead and many injured.

Cizre has spent years on the fringes of war. The unremarkable-looking town of just over 100,000 lies on the Tigris River, around 30 miles from the tripoint where Turkey meets conflict-ravaged Syria and Iraq, and violence regularly strays over the national boundaries. Now, the cycle of airstrikes and renewed PKK attacks on Turkish troops threaten a return to the three-decade-long struggle between the two sides that claimed more than 40,000 lives. And here, residents feel like they're at the heart of the fight.

More News And Analysis On the Escalating Conflict Between Turkey And The Kurds

Fighting intensifies as Turkey moves against Kurds inside Turkey -- Euronews
Pro-Kurdish party leader calls for steps to halt Turkey violence -- Reuters
Is Ankara headed toward all-out war with Turkey’s Kurds? -- Cengiz Çandar, Al-Monitor
Turkey’s Push Into War Is Seen as Erdogan’s Political Strategy -- NYT
Turkey and Its Kurds: At War Again -- Burak Bekdil, Gatestone Institute
The $55 billion cost of abandoning the Kurdish peace process -- Zülfikar Doğan, Al-Monitor