Turkey bombs PKK targets after attacks

Such was the power of the blast that houses in a village several hundred metres (yards) away were hit by debris and several villagers slightly injured, the Dogan news agency said. The account could not immediately be verified.

We want Turkey to accept Kurds as Turkish citizens and give us our right to live our lives according to our customs and culture.

The consulate in Istanbul has been closed to the public until further notice, said a written statement released on the consulate’s Twitter account.

Some Kurdish fighters from the PKK, have secured significant victories against IS in Iraq and Syria.

Beyazıt Çeken, a police chief in a bomb disposal unit, was then killed on Monday morning when assailants opened fire on a team of police officers examining the scene of the bomb attack.

-Var of cobra helicopters providing the security of the district.

Police sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the middle-aged woman was known by the alias Hulya, and had been designated as a potential bomber by the far-left group.

Reportedly after the attack, a short clash broke out between Turkish security forces and PKK militants.

The same official said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was behind a suicide attack on a police station in Istanbul that resulted in clashes that left three terrorists and one top police official dead.

“Let me put it clearly, the operations will continue”, he said in a televised speech in Ankara as Turkey presses on with air strikes on PKK targets in the country’s southeast and in northern Iraq.

It has been a high-risk strategy for a country straddling Europe and the Middle East which depends on tourism for around a tenth of its income, leaving it exposed to the threat of reprisals.

The latest air raids followed a day of violence in which nine people were killed, including five police offers in separate attacks in Istanbul and in southeastern Sirnak province, which the government blamed on the PKK.

The military later confirmed its forces had come under attack in Sirnak and had launched air strikes to take out two PKK heavy machine gun positions.

Turkish forces also are targeting Islamic State militants across the border in Syria.

Erdogan also declared the peace process to end the PKK insurgency was now “on ice”.

Some 40,000 have been killed since 1984, when the armed group launched its first attack.