Turkish authorities have been rounding up hundreds of suspected “terrorists”, including people with alleged links to the PKK.
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Six members of Turkey’s security forces have been killed in a series of attacks, amid rising tension between the government and Kurdish militants.
Violence on Monday saw at least five police officers and three militants killed.
One of the consulate attackers was later shot and taken into custody in a nearby building and hospitalized.
“Police were shouting “drop your bag, drop your bag”.
“Police were shouting ‘drop your bag, drop your bag.’ And the woman was saying: ‘I will not surrender, ‘” Akcay said.
On Monday, there was also an attack on the U.S. consulate located in Istanbul, according to The New York Times. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Authorities suspect that the PKK was behind the incident, according to Turkish media accounts.
The government vowed to begin strikes against Islamic State jihadists in Syria alongside US forces who have now started arriving to use the well-located Incirlik Turkish air base in the country’s south.
The consulate in Istanbul was hit by gunfire, but there were no casualties. Police have stepped up the security measures around the hospital.
One person was reported killed and 10 others were wounded after an Istanbul police station was attacked early Monday – first with a bomb and then with guns.
Both suspects in the police-station attack were killed in an exchange of gunfire, police said.
In 2008, an attack blamed on al-Qaida-affiliated militants outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead.
The official Anatolia news agency named her as Hatice Asik, 42, a member of the outlawed DHKP-C who had been planning a suicide bombing.
The Turkish military says that it struck 17 PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) targets overnight in Hakkâri Province, Turkey’s southeastern tip bordering Iran and Iraq.
Top PKK commander Cemil Bayik has accused Turkey of protecting IS militants by targeting Kurdish fighters.
The roadside bomb killed four police officers in the southeastern region of the nation and a group of Kurdish rebels were attacked by a helicopter.
Turkey is now battling a chaotic mix of the PKK, Marxist militants and Islamic State while dealing with a huge influx of Syrian refugees and foreign fighters transiting its territory on the way to Syria.
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A feeble ceasefire between the Kurds and the Turkish government has fallen to the wayside after Turkey launched airstrikes against Kurdish and “Islamic State” positions in Iraq and Syria in July as part of its “synchronized war on terror”. Erdoğan said last month the process had become impossible, although neither side has so far declared the negotiations definitively over. The group sees the U.S.as an enemy of the Middle East and wants the U.S.to close its bases in Turkey.
