Over 300 soldiers killed, 10 times more PKK militants killed: Erdoğan

YOZGAT

AA photo

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on March 25 that the number of killed soldiers across Turkey during operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the country’s southeast was over 300 while, noting that this number was 10 times more in PKK.

“Since July [2015] the number of martyrs across the country during the fight against terror has exceeded 300. Of course, the losses of terrorists inside the country and abroad are at least 10 times more than that,” Erdoğan said, adding that those who want to divide the nation would not prevail.

Recently, Turkey has been hit by its worst violence in years, after a fragile peace process shattered in July 2015 following a two-and-a-half-year de facto cease-fire between security forces and PKK militants.

Three Turkish soldiers were killed late on March 24 in an outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) car bomb attack in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, the Turkish General Staff has announced.

PKK militants attacked the Mermer Gendarmerie Post on the Diyarbakır Lice motorway at around 9:10 p.m. by detonating a bomb-laden car, killing three soldiers and wounding another 24, the General Staff said in a statement.

The wounded soldiers were immediately taken to hospital where their treatment is continuing, the statement added.

Security forces killed 24 PKK militants on March 24 in the towns of Nusaybin, Şırnak and Yüksekova in southeast Turkey, near the borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran, the military said. 

Turkish warplanes struck PKK targets in northern Iraq on March 24. In the latest in a series of air strikes in northern Iraq, Turkish F-16 and F-4 jets destroyed PKK ammunition depots and shelters in the Avasin and Basyan areas on March 24 in the afternoon, the military said. 

A curfew was declared on March 25 in the Silvan district of the southeastern province of Diyarbakır ahead of operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the district governor’s office has announced.
The curfew was declared in 18 neighborhoods and villages of Silvan on March 25 at 11 a.m. until further notice, District Gov. Murat Kütük said in a statement.

According to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV), this is the seventh curfew imposed in Silvan since August 2015, with the longest previous instance lasting between Nov. 3 and 14, 2015.