Kurdish PKK female fighter, 2019. Photo: PKK media
DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey Kurdistan,— Three Turkish soldiers were killed in a clash with Kurdish PKK militants in Turkey Kurdistan, the Kurdish region in southeast Turkey, near the borders with Syrian Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan, the local governor’s office said on Thursday.
Three militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were “neutralized” in the fighting, the Sirnak governor’s office said in a written statement.
It said the soldiers were maintaining security for state energy company Turkish Petroleum (TPAO) near the town of Silopi in Sirnak when the clash broke out on Wednesday.
The militants had previously been spotted by a drone in the same area, it said.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
Read more about Turkey’s policy against Kurds
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