Turkey’s Kurdish region,— Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan described himself as a “guardian of peace” on Saturday as he called on Kurds in Turkish Kurdistan to vote ‘yes’ in a referendum in two weeks time on reforms that would grant him sweeping new powers. Since July 2015, Turkey initiated a controversial military campaign against the PKK in the country’s southeastern Kurdish region after Ankara ended a two-year ceasefire agreement. Since the beginning of the campaign, Ankara has imposed several round-the-clock curfews, preventing civilians from fleeing regions where the military operations are being conducted.
