Clashes with PKK kill Turkey army soldier, injure three policemen
One Turkish soldier has been killed and three police officers injured in clashes with militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey.
According to Turkish security sources, the casualties occurred early on Monday when clashes erupted between Turkey’s army and the PKK militants near security outposts in the town of Nazimiye in Tunceli province, 500 kilometers (310 miles) northeast of the province of Gaziantep.
A female PKK militant was also killed during the skirmishes.
Sources further noted that the incident prompted Turkish authorities to impose a round-the-clock curfew on Nazimiye and order security forces, backed by attack helicopters, to seal the area and send in reinforcements.
The development comes at a time when Turkey is still reeling from the Saturday deadly bomb blast that targeted a wedding ceremony, killing more than 50 people in the city of Gaziantep.
That attack was described as the deadliest in a series of bombings in Turkey this year blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group and the outlawed PKK militant group that has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in the country's southeast since 1984.
Turkey-PKK clashes
Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale anti-PKK campaign in its southern border region over the past few months. The Turkish military has also been pounding the group’s positions in northern Iraq as well in breach of the Arab country’s sovereignty.
Turkey’s operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in Suruc, which the Turkish government blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.
After the bombing, the PKK militants, who accuse Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting Turkey’s military operations.
A shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had stood since 2013 was declared null and void by the militants following the Turkish strikes against the group.
More than 600 Turkish security forces and over 7,000 PKK militants have been killed since the collapse of the truce, according to the latest toll provided by the state-run Anadolu news agency in July.
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