Two Turkish soldiers have been killed and two others have been wounded in clashes with outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the Sur district of the southeastern Diyarbakır province where a round-the-clock curfew has been in place since Dec. 2, 2015.
According to a statement released by the Turkish Armed Forces at 9 a.m. on Feb. 17, the soldier identified as Mehmet Ali Dinç was heavily wounded while two others sustained light wounds in an operation carried out against PKK militants in Sur late Feb. 16.
“The wounded soldiers were promptly transferred to a hospital. However, despite all efforts at the hospital, our heavily wounded comrade-in-arms could not be saved,” the statement said.
The statement read that Sergeant Mehmet Ali Dinç succumbed to his wounds at 11:45 p.m. on Feb. 16. Dinç’s funeral will be held in the eastern province of Malatya after a symbolic ceremony at a military hospital in Diyarbakır.
Fresh clashes that erupted during military operations against militants from the outlawed group in Sur on Feb. 17 have killed another soldier in the district, which has been under military curfew for more than two months.