Three Turkish soldiers killed by Kurdish rebels in Diyarbakir
Another soldier was killed during Ankara's ongoing invasion of the Afrin region in Syrian Kurdistan.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – A Turkish military operation on Tuesday against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir led to the killing of three soldiers and wounding of four others.
A press release on the website of the Ankara-appointed governor’s website said a roadside explosive device caused the casualties, as the army was continuing the operation in Diyarbakir’s northern Dicle district.
No PKK losses were reported, and there was no statement by the group.
Turkish authorities have recently ordered on and off curfews in rural areas to fight the PKK in several Kurdish provinces.
It is a practice enforced on hundreds of occasions, at times for months since the revival of the decades-long PKK-Turkish state conflict in the aftermath of the mid-2015 collapse of a round of peace talks.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration has taken a proactive military approach after abandoning a political solution to the millions-strong Kurdish people’s demands for annulment of laws and practices targeting their national aspirations and right to self-rule.
Thousands from both sides, including hundreds of civilians, have been victims of the conflict that mainly raged on in urban population centers throughout 2015-2016.
Meanwhile, another Turkish soldier was killed during Ankara’s ongoing invasion of the Afrin region in Syrian Kurdistan, according to a statement by the country’s General Staff.
The official number of troops killed in Afrin thus rose to 43, with over 200 others wounded in the offensive on the US-armed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Coalition ally in the war on the Islamic State in Syria.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany