News / Turkey

New clashes between Turkey army, PKK leave six dead

Wednesday, 25 November 2015 5:57 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 25 November 2015 5:57 AM ]

Turkish police officers carry the coffin of a comrade during his funeral at the police headquarters in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, November 23, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

At least six people have been killed in fresh skirmishes between Turkish security forces and members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey’s southeastern province of Sirnak.

The provincial governor’s office, in a statement released on Tuesday, said a police officer lost his life during a clean-up operation against PKK fighters.

The statement added that five Kurdish militants were also killed as they engaged in fierce exchange of gunfire with Turkish security personnel.

The development took place only hours after one Turkish police officer was killed and another sustained injuries in a surprise attack by a group of unidentified gunmen against security forces in the country’s southeastern province of Sanliurfa.

Security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 31-year-old police officer, Serdal Toprak, and his comrade, Sinan Sengul, were on patrol in the Siverek district of the province, situated some 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) east of the capital, Ankara, early on Tuesday when unknown attackers opened fire on them.

Both policemen sustained gunshot wounds, and were transferred to Siverek State Hospital, where Toprak succumbed to his injuries.

A flag of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) hangs on a barricade as armed militants man a barricade, in the Sur district of Diyarbakir, Turkey, November 18, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

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

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 border with Syria. Over 30 people died in the Suruc attack, which the Turkish government blamed on Takfiri Daesh terrorists.

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

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