Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said the blast killed at least three police officers and injured almost 100 other people. “On Monday, a auto bomb detonated near a traffic police station outside the southeast city of Diyarbakir, killing eight”, he says.
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Considered a terror group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK took up arms against Turkey in 1984 seeking an independent state for the country’s Kurdish minority. The Turkish authorities blamed the PKK for the attack.
Three people have been confirmed killed, and at least 40 others injured, after two bombs went off in eastern Turkey on Wednesday.
Yildirim vowed to fight the PKK until it is “eliminated”.
On Thursday, PKK militants also attacked a police checkpoint in the southeastern town of Semdinli, near the Iraqi and Iranian borders, wounding two police officers, Dogan news agency said.
“We are determined to find any threat coming from within or outside Turkey”, Yildirim said at a briefing during his visit to the city in remarks broadcast by the TRT news channel.
In a separate attack in Libya, Islamic State suicide bombers detonated two cars bombs that killed at least 10 of Libya’s pro-government forces, authorities said.
Since then, Anadolu reports, hundreds of Turkish security forces and about 5,000 PKK members have been killed in the conflict.
The U.S. State Department condemned the “horrific” attack in Bitlis, offered condolences to the victims’ families and wished a speedy recovery for the wounded. “Vice President Biden will travel to Ankara next week to reaffirm our commitment to Turkey’s security and democracy”. The Van governor’s office said the PKK was responsible.
The ban requested that media to keep from publishing anything that could incite “fear in the public, panic and disorder and which may serve the aims of terrorist organizations”.
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Elazig is a conservative nationalist bastion, and had until now avoided much of the violence that has struck the restive Kurdish-dominated southeast over recent months.
