PKK claims Sanliurfa attack that killed two civilians

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - On Friday, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) declared responsibility for the last week blast in the Kurdish province of Sanliurfa in southern Turkey that killed two civilians, including a 10-year-old child.

A press release on the website of PKK's armed wing People's Defence Forces (HPG) said the attack was "retaliatory" in response to the "murder by the Turkish state of three resistance fighters" in the town of Viransehir, near the border with Syrian Kurdistan.

There was no direct reference as to when those PKK fighters were killed, but the last time a clash broke out between the Kurdish rebels and Turkish government forces in Viransehir was on December 3, 2016, per the Sanliurfa Governorate, when four HPG guerrillas were killed in a safe house inside the town.

Last weekend's car bomb attack targeting a housing complex for the police, prosecutors, and judges in Viransehir (Wêranşar‎ in Kurdish) also wounded 18.

HPG's release did not mention the casualties of the explosion which was conducted by a local unit of theirs, only saying the bomb damaged "numerous police cars" and apartments.

Authorities blamed the PKK for the Viransehir attack, as police arrested 26 people in Sanliurfa and the neighboring Mardin.

Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a PKK offshoot, usually claims attacks, particularly those in Turkish-majority cities, that do not refrain from causing civilian loss of life.

The four-decades-old conflict between the PKK and Turkish troops over the government repression of Kurdish cultural rights and political demands flared up again in mid-2015 as peace talks and a two-years-held fragile ceasefire collapsed.

Since then, the relaunched war, this time also in urban centers such as Diyarbakir, Mardin, Sirnak, Hakkari provinces saw the killing of hundreds of PKK fighters, Turkish soldiers, police officers, as well as civilians.

The Turkish offensive with tanks and heavy artillery have left dozens of Kurdish towns and cities in rubbles where PKK-affiliates declared autonomy and dug trenches, displacing over half a million people according to a December 2016 Amnesty International report.

Editing by Ava Homa