60 armed vehicles were damaged…
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Qatar expressed condemnation and denunciation of the bombing which occurred near a police checkpoint in the southeastern Turkish province of Sirnak yesterday, killing 11 officers and wounding 78, including three civilians. It said two of the soldiers are in critical condition and the Turkish military is seeking to capture the militants.
The attack struck the checkpoint 50 meters (yards) from a main police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly-Kurdish Sirnak province that borders Syria.
In the statement on its website it said the attack was retaliation for the “continued isolation” of its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan and the “lack of information” about his welfare.
At the same time, Turkey has been afflicted by deadly attacks blamed on Islamic State militants, including a suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in southeast Turkey last week that killed 54 people and an attack on Istanbul’s main airport in June that killed 44 people. That has complicated the relationship with the Turkish government, which views the Kurdish YPG in Syria as an affiliate of the PKK. “There is no question that our fight with terror will succeed”. One security official was killed in the incident.
Violence between the PKK and the security forces resumed last year, after the collapse the two-year peace process in July. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting.
The conflict has been ongoing for more than three decades, with the PKK demanding greater autonomy for the Kurdish minority in Turkey, which has long complained of discrimination.
The government had said the PKK had targeted the convoy of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), who escaped unharmed.
Over the past year, the military has conducted operations and imposed punishing curfews in towns and cities in the southeast that have claimed civilian lives, including in Cizre.
More than 40,000 people, have died since the PKK rebels took up arms in 1984.
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Last week Erdogan accused followers of a US -based Islamic cleric he blames for the July 15 coup attempt of being complicit in attacks by Kurdish militants.
