News / Turkey

Three Turkish soldiers killed in clashes with PKK

Monday, 22 February 2016 6:28 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 22 February 2016 6:27 AM ]

Honor guards carry the coffins of army officers killed while fighting Kurdish militants in Turkey’s southeast, at Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara, Turkey, February 21, 2016. (Photo by AP)

At least three Turkish soldiers have been killed and another has been injured during separate operations against members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group in Turkey’s volatile southeast.

The Turkish General Staff announced in a statement that an offensive had been carried out in the town of Idil in Sirnak Province near the border with conflict-stricken Syria on Sunday and Turkish forces and PKK militants had engaged in a firefight.

The statement added that a Turkish army trooper sustained gunshot wounds as a result and was transferred to a local hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries later on.

Moreover, three soldiers were wounded in an attack by PKK members in the Sur district of Diyarbakir Province, situated 676 kilometers (420 miles) east of the capital, Ankara, on Sunday. Two of the wounded soldiers later died at hospital.

On February 16, clashes between army soldiers and PKK fighters left two soldiers dead and one more wounded in the embattled southeastern part of Turkey.

People look at their destroyed homes and shops in the Sur district of Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakir, February 3, 2016. (Photo by AP)

Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the past few months. The Turkish military has also been conducting offensives against the positions of the group in northern Iraq.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. More than 30 people died in the attack, which the Turkish government blamed on the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group.

After the bombing, the PKK militants, who accuse the government in Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting the Turkish military operations.

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