One Turkish soldier killed, five injured in clashes with PKK militants
At least one Turkish soldier has been killed and five others have sustained injuries in a fierce exchange of gunfire with militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey’s eastern province of Agri.
Security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said gendarmerie teams were conducting an operation in the Dogubeyazit district of the province, located 1,200 kilometers east of the capital Ankara, when they came across a group of PKK militants.
The sources added that the Turkish forces and Kurds then engaged in a bitter gun battle, which left six soldiers injured. The soldiers were then taken to a nearby hospital, where one of them succumbed to his gunshot wounds.
A PKK militant was also killed and several others injured during the clashes.
The Turkish military then dispatched reinforcement forces to the area to capture the terrorists.
PKK militants regularly clash with Turkish forces in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of Turkey attached to northern Iraq.
Turkey, along with the European Union and the United States, has declared the PKK a terrorist group and has banned it. The militant group has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.
A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.
Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against PKK positions in the country as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria.
More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group.
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