be cautious in south east anatolia
 

Hello
I exited from Iran on wednesday 14 november, heading to Erzurum the same day. Had a drink at Kars hotel with a german/netherland couple (hans and greta/berta?) who had very bad experience around Diyarbakir. They were heading to Van and got jandarmia controls every 50km max from Saniurfa, sometimes full luggage control, even under the rain. Finally they were asked to stop a place she could not get off the bike. Caught by the shoulder greta/berta felt with bike. Hans ran to her and got thrown to the ground by 4, visor torn and kicked in face (At Erzurum could not eat except çorba). Before they had the feeling each check point was waiting for them, maybe go-pro or old syrian visa in Hans passport they didn't understand why.
They are now in Iran and Hans is always painful when chewing
They talked to me about Peter who got hurted at the right knee because he didn't stop fast enough (10/15 m before the stopping point a second soldier arose and hit him with gunstock) couldn't ride any more, bike sent to Istanbul custom in a van by the jandarma. We got in touch and as he's english teacher in Pergama, i arrange the reception of his bike in this last town with the carrier driver. I must thank the Istanbul custom officers for helping us and accept to ignore procedure. But his tiger 800 "lost" headlights and tank bag. The driver took a photo before he loads and seems not to be responsible. Peter is now under surgery in Cyprus (?) and the bike "is safe".
Another biker i was in touch with took the same road and had no problem…but I think that the turkish army doesn't want witnesses in the area and every kurdish people i met was really upset by the turks and protest, totally different from one month before.
Anyway when i went to Hossein place the only opened frontier to get out was Dogshit, so my advice would be to stay on Ankara Erzurum Agri road, at least until beginning of november.
Ride safe cheers.

I'd say the Turkish Army and Police are on extremely "heightened alert" because of the current situation so anyone travelling in that area just has to accept that security is tight and they had better tread carefully.

We were in eastern Turkey a few months ago when the situation was just getting more tense and there had been a skirmish resulting in 4 PKK getting killed. Twice we were camped and a bus-load of Jandarma got out to check us out and they couldn't have been nicer - using their phones to translate - they said where we were camped worried them and they would be much happier if we would be kind enough to let them show us a safer spot to wild camp. Great bunch of blokes, but they all had their weapons at the ready - not threatening us of course - but in a more tense situation at a roadblock, the mood would be different.

Just stay away from Diyarbakir and around for your own safety. PKK is very active in that area therefore Turkish army is highly alerted. You should always do a little research before hand where you go to my friend. Just my 2 cents...

I hope you get home safely.

Bombings and attacks from PKK very tense nowadays and army don't know who is who. They also responsible from the people who are at their responsibility area. Also many soldiers attacked by people who are travelling in the cars. It is not same like Yvest39 told that Army don't want witnesses. Army don't do massacre but defending against PKK only.

After Ankara bomb attack police blamed with not checking everybody well.

[QUOTE=Tony LEE;518721]I'd say the Turkish Army and Police are on extremely "heightened alert" because of the current situation so anyone travelling in that area just has to accept that security is tight and they had better tread carefully.
[QUOTE]

There has been detailed news coverage today on UK TV of the situation highlighted in the two abstracts above.
A theme of such reports is that the tensions may not subside after the Turkish elections scheduled for November 1st.
PKK activity has increased markedly but there is also the IS/ISAL/Daesh factor - it seems likely that that conflict is spilling over the border from Syria.