While announcing a Development Action Plan in the southeastern province of Diayrbakır, Prime Minister Yıldırım said a large amount of the money would be used for rebuilding the seven provincial centers damaged by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) extremism in recent months.
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It was one of the highest casualty tolls in a single day of the conflict in recent years. Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast has been rocked by waves of violence since the 2015 collapse of ceasefire between the state and the PKK.
The remaining militants retreated back to northern Iraq, the statement added.
Four PKK targets were struck by Turkish fighter jets in the Cukurca district of Hakkari province between 8.42 p.m. and 9.07 p.m local time (1742-1807GMT), said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media. Since then, more than 600 security personnel have been martyred and more than 7,000 PKK terrorists killed.
Eight more security force members were reportedly killed overnight in Van.
More than 40,000 people, a lot of them Kurds, have died since autonomy-seeking PKK launched its insurgency against the Turkish state more than 30 years ago.
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Turkey, the European Union, and the US consider the PKK a terrorist organization that has waged a three-decade-long insurgency.
