More than 15 Turkish police were killed Tuesday in an attack blamed on Kurdish militants as violence in the southeast threatened to spiral out of control and Ankara launched a massive wave of airstrikes against militants' strongholds in northern Iraq.
Afkham on Wednesday evening condemned the attack, and expressed sympathy with the Turkish government and nation over the incident.
She also voiced concern over the continued insecurities in Iran’s northwestern neighboring country, and called on the two sides to restart their peace talks.
The Iranian spokeswoman at the same time urged Ankara to respect the sovereignty of other countries, saying any breach of sovereignty would further complicate the critical situation in the region and would justify foreign countries’ interference in the Middle East.
The violence in Turkey has left in tatters a 2013 cease-fire aimed at allowing a final peace deal to end the PKK's three-decade insurgency, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The PKK initially took up arms in 1984 with the aim of establishing an independent state for Turkey's Kurdish minority, although lately the demands focused on greater autonomy and rights.
Commentators have expressed alarm that the current situation increasingly resembles the worst days of the PKKs insurgency in the 1990s when attacks on this scale were commonplace.