PKK bomb attack kills two Turkish police, curfew declared

The Kurds in Turkey suffered decades of official discrimination and denial of their culture’s existence.

The truce fell apart in the wake of a July 20 suicide bomb attack which killed 33 pro-Kurdish and left-wing activists in the country’s border town of Suruç in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) – which attempted to stage a march to the town but was prevented from doing so by security forces – claims at least 21 of those killed were civilians, including at least two children. Helicopters then landed commandos in the area where the PKK fighters were, and intermittent clashes ensued.

Turkish security forces have been conducting an anti-terror operation around the town of Cizre to counter PKK attacks.

An air-assisted operation has been launched in the region to apprehend the militants.

Diyarbakir: Three policemen were killed by Kurdish militants on Sunday in two separate attacks in Turkey’s southeast, security sources said, as the authorities imposed new curfews in the battle against the rebels.

Police fired water canon at protesters in Diyarbakir, located in southern Turkey, on September 13, in response to demonstrations about curfew restrictions put in place in the city.

Turkey sent about 200 troops, including special forces, in hot pursuit of militants fleeing into Iraq after the killing of 16 Turkish soldiers on Sunday, the state-run Anadolu Agency said.

“We’ve lived in Ankara for 35 years and never experienced anything like this”, said the 54-year-old Kurdish resident of Altindag, an ethnically mixed working-class district.

The wounded were sent to Sirnak Provincial Hospital in Sirnak province, according to the Today’s Zaman Turkish newspaper.

The remnants of the fighting were still apparent in Cizre, with barricades and trenches blocking streets scattered with empty shell casings and the wrecks of burned-out cars.The length of the curfew in Cizre – meaning that citizens were unable to move freely outside their homes for over a week – also caused worldwide concern.

In figures not possible to independently verify, it also said 1,192 Kurdish militants had been killed.