One Turkish soldier was killed early on Thursday and 5 others were injured in current clashes with the PKK in Hakkari, hours after Ankara stated it had killed sixteen PKK members in the area abiding by a raid on a armed forces convoy.
The clash came about in the Şemdinli district’s village of Umurlu, the Hakkari Governor’s Office stated in a affirmation on Thursday. It added that the causalities came about during a operation in reaction to an earlier attack by the PKK in Umurlu. The injured soldiers were brought to Yüksekova State Hospital and Hakkari Military Hospital by helicopter.
The clashes emphasise a arising cycle of violence in the remote, mountainous province of Hakkari, which borderlines Iraq and Iran, a development Turkish officials and analysts are connecting to the conflict in nearby Syria.
The latest series of PKK strikes came only hours after government officials stated Turkish troops had downed sixteen PKK operatives in an offensive aiming PKK members who killed 5 soldiers and injured 7 on Wednesday in a bomb assault on their convoy in Şemdinli. Officials stated the military had sent in troop reinforcements and helicopter gunships after Wednesday’s attack.
Coming after the attack in Umurlu, 5 more PKK members were killed in the Şemdinli district, the governor’s office stated in a second statement. The statement added that Turkish security forces had established a operation after one Turkish soldier was killed in the earlier attack on Umurlu. The statement reiterated that military operations in the region have kept going uninterrupted.
In a related development, Turkish troops killed 5 more PKK members in an effort to keep them away from entering the central Şemdinli district, the governor’s office stated in a 3rd affirmation. 5 PKK gunmen had reportedly fired on Turkish security forces; they were all killed in the clash, the affirmation added up.
