Eight soldiers killed in PKK bomb attack in Turkey

The attack comes amid renewed violence between the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and Turkey’s security forces.

Eight were killed on Wednesday in a remote-controlled roadside bomb in the southeastern province of Siirt.

“PKK is a terrorist organization, which killed tens of thousands of innocent people in the past”, he said.

The statement added that a gendarme sergeant was also injured in a PKK attack in Uludere district.

The PKK has been staging every day assaults towards the Turkish armed forces because the army retains up air raids and army operations towards its strongholds in southeast Turkey in addition to northern Iraq.

It has also left in tatters a ceasefire agreed two years ago with the PKK as part of efforts to end a conflict in the predominantly Kurdish southeast which has killed about 40,000 people over the past three decades.

Pinar Elman, Turkey analyst at the Polish Institute of worldwide Affairs (PISM) said the past had shown that military means are not enough to defeat the PKK and reforms are needed. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was in the capital Ankara at the time of the attack.

The report in question, published Thursday on BBC’s website, is devoted to fighters in a training camp of the PKK in northern Iraq, preparing to face the jihadists of ISIS. “You will make the choice. We have conveyed this to the partners in the coalition“, said YPG Spokesman Redur Khalil.

In another incident on Wednesday, gunfire and a blast were heard outside the iconic Dolmabache palace in Istanbul.

Meanwhile, suspected members of the PKK threw two bombs outside the regional headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

One policeman was reported to have been lightly wounded.

The DHKP-C claimed a similar attack on the Dolmabahce Palace on January 1 where two grenades were hurled at the guards which failed to explode.

A surge of violent attacks across Turkey, the war in neighboring Syria, and political instability at home have plunged the country into a period of deep uncertainty, with Turkey’s tourism sector taking a hit.