TURKEY’S weekend bombing raids on Kurdish targets could spell the end of a two-year ceasefire with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the party warned yesterday.

Following rising tensions with its oppressed Kurdish community, Turkey combined Saturday’s air strikes against Islamic State (Isis) with attacks on shelters and storage facilities operated by the PKK in Iraq.

Hours after the air raids, a car bomb killed two soldiers in the south-eastern Turkish town of Lice, while gunmen opened fire on police stations in several other towns in the area, apparently without causing any casualties.

“Turkey has basically ended the ceasefire,” PKK spokesman Zagros Hiwa said.

Ankara has taken advantage of the Isis threat to launch a sweeping crackdown on “terrorists” which has seen large numbers of Kurdish activists arrested. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Saturday that over 600 “suspects” had been arrested in two days.

Turkey has held PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan behind bars since 1999 and claims the party, which seeks autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds, is a terrorist organisation — a designation accepted by Nato and the EU but opposed by most countries including China, India and Russia.

The sudden resumption of attacks on the party is likely to cause further chaos in Iraq and Syria, where Kurdish forces have been the most successful military opponents of Isis.

The PKK accuses the regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of doing little to combat Isis. His government has allowed fighters and weapons to flood across the border into Syria and has even faced accusations of deliberately allowing arms deliveries to the terror group to weaken the Kurdish cause.

“Turkey is insisting on war against the Kurds,” the Kurdistan National Congress, an umbrella group representing various pro-autonomy and pro-independence Kurdish forces, declared yesterday.

The wave of bombing that took place on Saturday was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Lausanne agreement of July 24 1923, when Kurdistan was split into four, the congress said.

“The attack highlights that this policy of annihilation against the Kurds is still ongoing and on the agenda,” the umbrella group added.

“The [Turkish] government has amplified this by collaborating with Isis for over two years against the Kurds.”