KABUL: (MEP) At least three Turkish soldiers have been killed and another has been injured during separate operations against members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group in Turkey’s volatile southeast.
The Turkish General Staff announced in a statement that an offensive had been carried out in the town of Idil in Sirnak Province near the border with conflict-stricken Syria on Sunday and Turkish forces and PKK militants had engaged in a firefight.
The statement added that a Turkish army trooper sustained gunshot wounds as a result and was transferred to a local hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries later on.
Moreover, three soldiers were wounded in an attack by PKK members in the Sur district of Diyarbakir Province, situated 676 kilometers (420 miles) east of the capital, Ankara, on Sunday. Two of the wounded soldiers later died at hospital.
Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the past few months. The Turkish military has also been conducting offensives against the positions of the group in northern Iraq.
After the bombing, the PKK militants, who accuse the government in Ankara of supportingISIS, engaged in a series of reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting the Turkish military operations.
