The militant Kurds of Turkey have made a gross mistake by resuming terrorist activities and starting to kill Turkish policemen and soldiers in eastern and southeastern Turkey in an escalating manner.

The PKK never really believed in the peace and reconciliation process launched by the Turkish government led by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). It pretended to heed the calls of its imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan who asked the militants to give peace a chance. On the contrary the PKK did not lay down its arms; it did not withdraw its militants from Turkey to the mountains of northern Iraq. On the contrary it used the peace process to consolidate its terrorist structure in the cities and townships of eastern and southeastern Turkey preparing to launch a campaign to separate the region from Turkey.

So when it realized that there was a window of opportunity with the events in northern Syria where the Kurds started to set up their own state structures and with the help of the Western powers led by the United States consolidate their ambitions to establish their own enclave which the PKK felt it could imitate this on Turkish soil. Of course they missed the fact that U.S. support for Syrian Kurds was because they were fighting blood thirsty religious militants of ISIS.

So when 31 Kurdish youths were killed in a bomb attack in the Suruç township of Şanlıurfa near the Syrian border, the PKK used this as a pretext to end the period of non-violence and resumed its bloodbath in Turkey. Since then nearly five dozen Turkish soldiers and policemen have been murdered by the PKK.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish politicians of Turkey instead of trying to hold the PKK at bay and force it to give up violence have been involved in a public relations campaign to claim that the counterterrorist offensive of the Turkish forces is unjustified and that the Turkish state is committing human rights violations... They are simply encouraging the PKK to continue the bloodbath.

The PKK tried to kill two birds with one stone. It did not only intend to exploit the current government uncertainties in Turkey and try to create a similar situation in southeastern Turkey like that in northern Syria but it also tried to prevent early elections in Turkey. The PKK calculated that if they increase their terrorist activities and thus kill more Turkish security personnel, then the Turkish public saying "scrap elections, concentrate on ending the bloodbath" would force the AK Party to abandon plans to hold early polls. Yet, with Turkey heading for early elections full speed we see that the PKK's tactics have not been successful.

Nonetheless, the killings are continuing and the state is determined fight back.

The silent majority in Turkey is observing all these developments with building anger and frustration. This is very dangerous. Everyone has to remember that Turkey does have a strong Turkish nationalist movement which is being kept at bay by Devlet Bahçeli. But for how long?

The Kurdish politicians of Turkey led by those in the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) should start seeking ways to halt PKK violence by forcing the militants to lay down their arms. They owe this to the 13 percent who voted for them in the June 7 elections.