An attack with an explosives-laden truck on a police checkpoint in south-east Turkey has killed at least 11 police officers and wounded 78 other people, reuters.com reports.
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Ankara has labelled the YPG, which has links to Turkey’s outlawed PKK, as a terror group bent on carving out an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria on the Turkish border.
Large plumes of smoke billowed from the site in Cizre, located in Turkey’s Sirnak province bordering both Syria and Iraq, footage on CNN Turk showed.
The PKK – also listed as a terrorist organisation by the USA and the European Union – resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015 and has slaughtered more than 600 security personnel yet, while more than 7,000 PKK terrorists have also been killed.
The PKK said it carried out the assault in retaliation for the “continued isolation” of the group’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan and the “lack of information” about his welfare.
The blast caused extensive damage to the police building.
But Prime Minister Binali Yidirim on Friday denounced as a “bare-faced lie” suggestions in Western media that the Syria operation was singling out Kurds.
Ankara’s hostility to the YPG puts it at odds with its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, the United States, which supports the YPG in the fight against IS.
Blasts could be heard coming from the town Friday as pro-Ankara fighters blew up unexploded ordnance.
Experts say much of the YPG forces are made up of PKK members and the threat of the PKK retaliating in Turkey is a growing risk.
Ankara is continuing to reinforce its presence in Syria, with pro-government newspapers claiming Turkey could increase its deployment in Syria from the present 500 to more than 15,000 soldiers.
The government for its part has vowed to press on with the campaign to eradicate the PKK from eastern Turkey.
Cizre was placed under 24-hour curfew for several weeks earlier this year as the security forces launched operations to root out Kurdish militants.
Turkish officials announced Thursday they have detained 40 people in central and southern Turkey suspected of being affiliated with ISIS, which the country blames for an attack against a Kurdish wedding party last Saturday, Anadolu reported.
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Turkey has sent tanks across the Syrian border following weeks of deadly attacks by the PKK and the Islamic State group.
