Two police officers killed after clashes with PKK

MARDİN

AA photo

One special operations police was killed April 18 in attack staged by outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the eastern province of Van, while another officer succumbed to his wounds at Gülhane Military Academy Hospital (GATA) some 17 days after being shot in the head in the Nusaybin district of southeastern Mardin province.

A special operations police, identified as 26-year-old Hakan Yurtoğlu, was shot in the head during operations against PKK militants in Nusaybin on April 1. He succumbed to his wounds on April 19 at GATA, where he had been receiving treatment for the last 17 days. 

Reports indicate Yurtoğlu’s funeral ceremony will be held at GATA on April 20, after which his coffin will be sent to his hometown of Sivas.

In a separate incident in the afternoon of April 18, a special operations police, identified as 38-year-old Abdullah Delibaş, was killed in clashes with the PKK in the İpekyolu district of eastern Van province. 

Two police officers were wounded as security forces raided a house at the Hacıbekir neighborhood of İpekyolu at 5:30 p.m. on April 18 upon receiving an intelligence report. However, clashes erupted when militants sheltering inside the house returned fire. 

While Delibaş succumbed to his wounds at Yüzüncü Yıl University’s Dursun Odabaşı Medical Center, reports fall short on detailing the other wounded soldier’s health condition. 

A funeral ceremony was held at Van, after which the officer’s coffin was sent to southeastern Gaziantep province in order to be transferred to his hometown of Kilis near Turkey’s border with Syria. 

Meanwhile, according to a report by Doğan News Agency citing “websites close to the PKK,” a purported senior PKK figure was killed in Turkish army’s aerial operations targeting PKK shelters in northern Iraq on December 2015.

The report identified the militants as Vedat Yoldaş, Muhtesim Özdoğan, Adem Atis and Cahit Yüksel.

Yüksel, codenamed “Serhat,” is on the Interior Ministry’s “orange list” for “most wanted terrorists” and there is a reward for any person sharing intelligence with regards to his whereabouts. 

In addition, Yoldaş, codenamed “Hakkı Amed,” is another alleged senior PKK figure who fled the İskenderun prison alongside 20 other convicts in 1997.