News / Turkey

PKK attack kills two soldiers, injures four in Turkey's southeast

Monday, 25 April 2016 2:17 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 25 April 2016 2:21 PM ]

Turkish army soldiers stand guard as Kurdish people wait to enter Cizre, a town subject to a curfew as part of an operation against Kurdish militants, on March 22, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Two Turkish soldiers have been killed and four others injured in an armed attack by militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the country’s volatile southeast.

According to a statement by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), the casualties occurred on Monday during clashes with PKK militants in Nusaybin, a Turkish town located on the Syrian border.

The assault came after the TSK said in a statement on Sunday that 15 militants from the outlawed PKK forces had been killed in clashes in Nusaybin and the towns of Sirnak and Lice, which are also located in Turkey’s southeast.

Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast has been hit by waves of violence in clashes between government forces and PKK militants after a ceasefire fell apart in July 2015.

People take pictures of destroyed buildings in the Kurdish-dominated town of Silvan, in Turkey, after clashes between Turkish forces and Kurdish militants, on November 14, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

The Turkish military has been conducting offensives against the positions of the group in northern Iraq and Syria as well.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. More than 30 people died in the attack, which the Turkish government blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

Following the bombing, PKK militants, who accuse the government in Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of attacks against Turkish security forces, prompting Turkey’s military operations in predominantly Kurdish-populated areas.

The clashes between the militants and the Turkish military in the flashpoint areas have forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

More than 40,000 people have been reportedly killed in the violence since the autonomy-seeking PKK took up arms in 1984.

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