News / Turkey

20 PKK militants killed in clashes with Turkish forces in southeast

Monday, 03 October 2016 11:06 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 03 October 2016 11:08 AM ]

Smoke rises and fires burn after Kurdish militants attacked a police checkpoint in Cizre, southeast Turkey, August 26, 2016, with an explosives-laden truck. (Photo by AP)

Twenty militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have been killed in fresh clashes with Turkish forces in the country’s mainly Kurdish-populated southeast.

Turkish soldiers killed a total of 20 PKK militants in two days of operations in the Beytussebap region of Sirnak Province, according to a Monday statement from the governor’s office and information provided by security sources.

Separately, Turkish security sources said on Monday that PKK militants in the mountainous Daglica area of Hakkari Province, which borders Iraq, detonated explosives on a road as a military vehicle passed, killing two soldiers and wounding a third.

Last week, six more PKK militants were killed in clashes with Turkish security forces in the country’s northern province of Ordu.

Provincial Governor Irfan Balkanlioglu said the terrorists were spotted and shot dead during an operation in the Mesudiye district of the province.

A ceasefire between Ankara and PKK militants collapsed last year after more than 30 civilians lost their lives in a July 2015 bomb attack in the southern Turkish town of Suruc.

Turkish security forces guard the road leading to Cizre, Sirnak Province, September 9, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

Turkish authorities held the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group accountable for the act of terror.

PKK militants, who accuse the Ankara government of sponsoring Daesh, mounted a series of supposed reprisal attacks against Turkish security forces after the bombing, prompting the Turkish military operations against its positions inside the country and northern Iraq.

In the ensuing violence thousand of militants, security forces and civilians have died.

The PKK has been calling for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.

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