Violence in Turkey’s Kurdish areas continues

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Kurdistan24) – On Monday, a wave of separate attacks and clashes between the Kurdish Civilian Protection Units (YPS) and the Turkish army in Turkey’s southeastern town of Nusaybin, near the Syrian border, left several casualties.  

Turkish forces are fighting a new, armed youth formation of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in the form of YPS.

Sources in the YPS told Kurdistan24 that at least two Turkish soldiers were killed, and 10 wounded in a blast that hit Turkish forces who were trying to enter Abdulqadirpasha neighborhood in Nusaybin.

“After the Turkish authorities’ imposed curfew in Sirnak last month, the YPS attacks escalated against the Turkish forces in the town of Cizire and extended to Nusaybin,” the YPS sources said.

Sirnak Province is on Turkey's border with both Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

[Destruction in Turkey's southeaset town of Sirnak by the Turkish forces operations, Sirnak, Turkey, April 24, 2016. (Photo: SN)]

Turkey's leading secular media Hurriyet Daily News reported a similar casualty toll, adding that the wounded soldiers were taken to Nusaybin State Hospital, where two soldiers later died.

Additionally, the PKK military wing, known as People's Defense Forces (HPG), hit a helicopter operating in the area between Diyarbakir and Bingol provinces. The helicopter was forced to retreat after it was heavily damaged.

Netherlands-based Kurdish Firat News Agency (ANF), a close associate of HPG, reported on Monday that HPG targeted the Turkish soldiers that tried to infiltrate Diyarbakir’s Lice district. 

“Turkish jets and helicopters shelled the area [of Lice] where more Turkish soldiers were airdropped as the operation was extended to a larger territory,” ANF reported. “And as a result two Turkish soldiers were killed, and three others were wounded during the clashes.”

Turkey’s southeast has been scorched by violence since a ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed last July. Round-the-clock curfews were instituted in parts of the southeast.

Reporting by Hisham Arafat

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany and Ava Homa