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Turkish troops battle PKK around SE hydroelectric plant

Turkish forces have also killed a total of 390 people in airstrikes targeting the PKK, according to anonymous security sources quoted by Anadolu Agency on 9 August.

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Tensions are high in the south-east after the Turkish military launched its campaign against the PKK.

The PKK has been waging an insurgency against the government in Ankara for more than three decades in an attempt to win more rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority.

The BBC report, which aired Wednesday during its “Newsnight” program, included interviews with, and profiles of, several Kurdish and Yazidi women at a PKK training camp in northern Iraq.

A Turkish official told reporters in Ankara that at least 55 Turkish forces have been killed recently in a PKK-led series of attacks across Turkey.

Eleven customs officials and their driver have been missing for two days after vanishing in the Van region of eastern Turkey on the border with Iran.

“As Turkish fighter jets were flying over Sirrin and Kobani, Islamic State terrorists were attacking Sirrin”, said Khalil.

The PKK, which the U.S. and Turkey list as a terrorist organization, has been emboldened after affiliated Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq scored major military victories against extremist group Islamic State.

The PKK killed eight soldiers in Siirt province on Thursday when they “detonated a handmade bomb planted on the highway between Siirt’s Şirvan and Pervari districts”.

The attacks and the political uncertainty added to pressure on the Turkish lira, which has lost 10.44 percent in value against the US dollar in just a month and 26 percent since the start of the year.

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“Publishing in this way about an organisation, which is named as a terrorist group by many countries, particularly EU countries, was a clear support to terrorism”, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday. “They will not only lay down arms, but also bury them under concrete”.

Turkey: 8 soldiers killed by roadside bomb