Turkey: 25 killed in clashes between army and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebel fighters in southeast
At least nine civilians and 16 rebel fighters have been killed as security forces battle militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, the army and the region’s main political party said on Monday.
Violence has raged in the region since the collapse of peace talks last July aimed at ending a three-decade PKK insurgency.
Some of the worst clashes have been in the town of Cizre and the Sur district of Diyarbakir, the region’s biggest city, where security forces have imposed a 24-hour curfew.
Ten of the 16 rebels killed on Sunday were in Cizre and six were in Sur, the military said on its website, adding that this brought the militants’ total death toll in the two places to 749 since December.
A plainclothes police officer was also gunned down on Monday in the town of Yuksekova near the Iraqi border, media reported.