Turkish soldiers killed in PKK attack

  • 04/08/2015
(Reuters)
(Reuters)

Two soldiers have been killed and two others wounded in southeast Turkey when a mine exploded in an attack blamed on militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Kurdish militants detonated a remote-control mine when a military convoy passed in the Arakoy region of Sirnak province bordering Iraq and Syria, security sources told AFP.

Tuesday's explosion (local time) triggered clashes between Turkish soldiers and PKK rebels, they said, confirming a report by the official Anatolia news agency.

The attack was blamed on the PKK, which has stepped up attacks against the security forces in the last two weeks as Turkish warplanes bomb its positions in northern Iraq.

The spiral of violence sparked by the killing of 32 pro-Kurdish activists last month in a town on the Syrian border by suspected Islamic State militants has left a 2013 ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK in tatters.

According to an AFP toll, 19 members of the Turkish security forces have been killed in attacks blamed on the PKK since the current crisis began.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies, took up arms for self-rule in 1984 in an armed struggle which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

AFP