News / Turkey

Fresh SE Turkey clashes leave 3 PKK militants dead

Wednesday, 02 December 2015 5:23 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 02 December 2015 5:24 PM ]

An armed PKK militant stands behind a barricade during clashes with Turkish forces in Bismil, Diyarbakir, Turkey, September 28, 2015. ©AFP

Fresh clashes between Turkish police and members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have left three PKK militants dead in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir.

According to a statement released on the website of the provincial governor's office, the clashes broke out on Wednesday after PKK militants violated a curfew in Diyarbakir’s Sur district and attacked a police checkpoint there.

Turkish security sources said that one woman militant and two others were killed while a police officer sustained injuries in the ensuing shoot-out. .

The development came four days after Tahir Elci, a lawyer and advocate of Kurdish rights, was killed in Sur in a gun battle between police and unidentified gunmen while he was giving a press statement.

Following the incident, the district announced on Wednesday that a curfew had been imposed in six of its neighborhoods until further notice.

The death of Elci, who was the head of Diyarbakir Bar Association, triggered protests across Turkey.

A demonstrator holds picture of Tahir Elci, a lawyer and advocate of Kurdish rights, during a protest in Istanbul, Turkey, November 28, 2015. ©Reuters

Elci was facing trial for saying that PKK was not a terrorist organization, as Ankara describes it. He had, however, denounced the PKK violence.

Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale military campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the recent past. The Turkish military has been also conducting offensives against the positions of the PKK in northern Iraq.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 20 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, located close to border with Syria. More than 30 people died in the Suruc attack, which the Turkish government blamed on Takfiri Daesh terrorist group.

After the bombing in Suruc, the PKK militants, who accuse the government in Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of supposed reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, in turn prompting the Turkish military operations.

The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since 1984. A shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had stood since 2013 was declared null and void following the Turkish military campaign against the militant group.

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