Report: Turkey's Kurdish conflict has turned more violent

urkey's long-simmering war with a Kurdish insurgency has escalated over the last year, reaching death tolls unseen in more than a decade, a new report focusing on the conflict says.

"Turkey's Kurdish conflict is becoming more violent, with more than 700 dead in fourteen months, the highest casualties in thirteen years," concluded the International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution organization that has extensively researched Turkey's war with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

"We're seeing the longest pitched battles between the army and the PKK, we're seeing a wide-spread campaign of kidnapping, suicide bombings and terrorist attacks by the PKK. They're very much on the offensive and unfortunately this is matched by much harder line rhetoric on both sides," added Hugh Pope, the chief author of the International Crisis Group report, in an interview with CNN.

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