Turkish Army, PKK fight in Black Sea and Kurdish regions

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - Turkish army says it killed six Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters on Friday in the northern Black Sea Region of Turkey.

According to governorate website of the Ordu Province in the region, there were no Turkish army casualties during the fighting that took place in the night.

Elsewhere in Hakkari province on the border with the Kurdistan Region and Iran, Kurdish fighters killed at least 15 Turkish troops in attacks on two separate army positions, said a Friday statement on the website of PKK's military wing, People's Defence Force (HPG).

Ordu is a Turkish-majority province that has high mountains and thick forest terrain, making it easier for Kurdish fighters to infiltrate deep into northern Turkey.

Turkish special forces conducted a military operation, supported by helicopters and started in an area covering provincial borders of Ordu, Tokat, and Sivas governorates after the clashes, reported private-owned Dogan news agency.

There was no confirmation of any clashes or casualties in the Black Sea Region on the website of the HPG as of the time of publishing this report.

A provincial news website published gory pictures of what it said to be corpses of killed PKK fighters, adding that hundreds of locals welcomed a group of soldiers returning from the mountains.

Two months ago, PKK fighters killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded two others in the same area in Ordu that neighbors the part-Kurdish province of Sivas.

Turkey's Black Sea Region is an ethnically mixed area hosting a sizeable minority population of Georgians, the Laz, Muslim Greeks, and Armenians.

Geographically close to the Kurdish-majority region, Black Sea provinces used to be a bastion of leftist groups before the 1980 military coup.

In March 2016, PKK's leadership based in the Qandil mountain range of the Kurdistan Region announced the formation of the "Peoples' United Revolutionary Movement" (HBDH), an alliance of 10 Turkish and Kurdish leftist groups to overthrow the Turkish Government.

The movement, according to statements on its website, claims to have killed 11 Turkish special police forces and 4 Turkish soldiers in the last two months in the Black Sea Region.

Meanwhile, state-run Anadolu Agency reported the killing of a paramilitary by an improvised explosive device (IED) in the Kurdish Sirnak province.

Paramilitaries, officially dubbed as village guards, are locals who are armed and funded by the Turkish state to be used against the PKK.

Editing by Ava Homa