One Turkish police officer martyred after PKK attack

Kurdish civilians, including women, children and elderly residents, have been killed during security operations and armed clashes since July 2015 in southeastern Turkey. Other casualties occurred in the provinces of Mardin and Diyarbakir. The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) said 27 civilians were killed on Tuesday and the Human Rights Association, an NGO, told the DPA news agency on Saturday that civilians who had not fled the city were being killed by rockets and tanks.

Turkey is on alert after 103 people were killed on October 10 when two suicide bombers ripped through a crowd of peace activists in the capital Ankara, the worst attack in modern Turkey’s history.

Hundreds of people in Istanbul as well as Diyarbakir and eastern city of Van took to the streets to protest against the security operations and curfews.

HRW senior Turkey researcher Emma Sinclair-Webb said “the Turkish government should rein in its security forces, immediately stop abusive and disproportionate use of force, and investigate the deaths and injuries caused by its operations”.

Traditionally foccused on the countryside, the PKK has shifted to southeastern towns, setting up barricades and digging trenches to keep security forces away.

Almost two months after the second election achieved a stronger-than-expected single party majority for the AK Party, swaths of Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast are still under lockdown. It comes at a time when the White House would like Turkey to step up efforts in the fight against the Islamic State group.

Demirtas accused the government and military of targeting citizens who were presented as “terrorists”.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have repeatedly pledged to press on with the operations until the region is “cleansed of terrorists”. The conflict has left tens of thousands of people dead. Food and water was running scarce in some Diyarbakir districts, while shopkeepers kept shutters closed in protest at the security operations, residents said. Security forces have killed more than 100 Kurdish rebels in last four days in southeast Turkey, news agencies’ reports say.

CNNquoted a source from the armed forces as saying that the operation aims “to neutralize the members of the separatist terrorist organization nesting in residential areas” as well as to “establish public order and security” and “enable civilians to resume normal living conditions”.