Turkish troops have killed 16 Kurdish fighters during an operation in southeastern Turkey in response to a bomb attack on a military convoy that killed five soldiers, according to the local governor’s office.
The clashes, which occurred on Wednesday and Thursday, are part of a growing cycle of violence in the remote, mountainous province of Hakkari bordering Iraq and Iran - a development which Turkish officials and analysts are linking to the deepening conflict in Syria.
The army sent in troop reinforcements and helicopter gunships after Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) activists detonated remote-controlled bombs in the attack on the army convoy in Hakkari’s Semdinli district on Wednesday, the Reuters news agency said.