Two security forces killed due to PKK attacks

MARDİN

CİHAN photo

A Turkish soldier was killed in an attack launched by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the southeastern province of Mardin on Oct. 1, while a police officer previously injured in a PKK attack succumbed to his injuries at a hospital in Ankara. 

In the Nusaybin district of Mardin, Gendarmerie Corporal Hakan Öcalan was killed in a clash launched by PKK militants that also left five soldiers and one temporary village guard wounded. One PKK militant was killed in the clashes, according to a statement issued by the Turkish General Staff. 

A ceremony was conducted for Öcalan at Mardin’s brigade command, after his body was sent to Istanbul to be laid to rest. 

Meanwhile, special operations police officer Emre Akbaş, who was wounded in an attack in the restive Cizre district of Şırnak three weeks ago, succumbed to his injuries on Oct. 1 at the Gülhane Military Hospital (GATA) in Ankara.

Akbaş was laid to rest in the Central Anatolian province of Aksaray, his hometown, after a ceremony at the provincial police department. 

Speaking at the funeral, Mustafa Akbaş, the late soldier’s father, said he spoke to his son on the phone one day before he was injured, and his son told him that they were going to Mardin to guard Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu when they actually were going to Cizre, just to prevent his parents from worrying about him. 

“He told us so that we would not get upset,” he said on Oct. 2. 

Meanwhile, 17 members of the PKK have been killed after a curfew was declared in Diyarbakır’s Silvan district, where two soldiers were killed on Oct. 1, Turkish security sources said, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. 

An operation against the PKK in Silvan was conducted after a curfew was imposed at 7 a.m. on Oct. 2. 

Another curfew was imposed in Mardin’s Nusaybin district late on Oct. 1 until further notice, with the provincial governor saying residents in the district had demanded that the region be “cleared of terrorists.” 

“There is a demand from our citizens to clear the district of terrorists,” Anadolu Agency quoted Mardin Governor Ömer Faruk Koçak as saying on Oct. 2. 

According to military sources, 35 PKK militants were killed in an air campaign conducted by Turkish air forces on the Gara camp in northern Iraq on Sept. 25.