The spate of violence has shattered a 2013 ceasefire aimed at finding a final peace deal to end the PKK’s three-decade insurgency, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Local officials said they also declared a curfew in that area.
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Curfews have been implemented in multiple districts around Silvan and the city of Diyarbakır – and re-implemented in Cizre, where the curfew had been dropped on Saturday following an eight-day counter-terrorism operation against the PKK.
The truce fell apart in the wake of a July 20 suicide bomb attack which killed 33 pro-Kurdish and left-wing activists in the country’s border town of Suruç in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa.
“I will resign if [the government] prove the civilians killed in Cizre are PKK militants”, he said after reading out the names of all the victims”, local media quoted him as saying Friday.
Turkish forces backed up by helicopters and commandos later on Sunday shelled a mountainous area where the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters had fled to after the checkpoint attack in Sirnak province, killing six of them, the sources told the Reuters news agency.
The authorities on Sunday imposed a curfew in several districts of Silvan after the deadly attack on police, Turkish media said.
The Diyarbakir governor’s workplace stated it had positioned the central historic Sur district underneath a round the clock curfew. The government said one civilian and 32 militants died.
On Thursday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that a full-scale ground operation against PKK in northern Iraq would be launched “if necessary”.
A police officer was reported killed in one other confrontation.
“We call on all the parties to take into account the public’s expectations”, he said in televised comments.
In figures not possible to independently verify, it also said 1,192 Kurdish militants had been killed.
The following statement was issued by the foreign affairs commission of the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) on September 10.
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The PKK, which is fighting for greater Kurdish autonomy, is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.
