22 militants killed in Turkey-PKK clashes in Sirnak: Turkish officials
Iran Press TV
Tue Sep 29, 2015 7:18AM
At least 22 militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have been killed in clashes with Turkish security forces in eastern Turkey over the past few days, Turkish officials say.
The Turkish General Staff said in a statement on Monday that the bodies of seven PKK members were recovered in the mountainous district of Beytussebap in the southeastern and Kurdish-majority Sirnak Province earlier in the day with their assault rifles and munitions nearby.
Fifteen PKK members were also killed on September 26.
Meanwhile, a police officer wounded in an attack in the southern province of Adana late on Monday has succumbed to his injuries.
The officer, Bircan Ilhanli, and his colleague Suleyman Cakir came under attack by gunmen on a motor bike in the Seyhan district of Adana. Cakir died instantly.
Adana Governor Mustafa Buyuk said initial investigations show that the attack was carried out by PKK militants, adding that a search for the assailants is underway.
Additionally, four civilians sustained injuries when alleged PKK militants launched a rocket-propelled grenade attack against a military convoy in Turkey's southeastern province of Diyarbakir.
Security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack was carried out on the Diyarbakir-Elazig highway late on Monday.
Turkey has been engaged in one of its biggest military operations in the southern border region in the recent past. The Turkish military has been conducting offensives against the alleged positions of the Takfiri Daesh terrorists in northern Syria as well as those of the PKK in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey.
The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 20 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, an ethnically Kurdish town located close to the Kurdish town of Kobani on the other side of the border in Syria, where over 30 people died.
The Turkish government blamed Daesh for the bombing.
On July 22, the PKK claimed responsibility for the killing of two Turkish police officers, saying they were cooperating with Daesh.
The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. The conflict has left tens of thousands of people dead.
On September 17, the PKK declared as null a unilateral ceasefire with the government in Ankara, accusing it of waging the military operations against the group to gain more votes in the November 1 snap elections.
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