Kurdish PKK attack on Turkish military vehicle leaves two soldiers dead: ministry
Car bomb exploded outside a Turkish police station, Diyarbakir, Turkey’s Kurdish region, 2016. Photo: Reuters
DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey Kurdistan,— Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants launched an attack on a Turkish military vehicle in Turkey Kurdistan in the southeast of the country on Tuesday, killing two soldiers and wounding another, the country’s defense ministry said.
It said the attack occurred in the Kurdish Hakkari province of Turkey, which borders Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan, and was carried out from a distance. It did not specify what form the attack took.
The Turkish military routinely carries out airstrikes and artillery bombardments in Iraq’s Kurdistan region against suspected PKK targets, but their frequency has increased since Ankara launched “Operation Claw” in May 2019, as have civilian casualties.
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.
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | Reuters
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