Turkey has carried out air strikes on 17 Kurdistan People’s Party targets in the southeastern province of Hakkari, the military said, ramping up an offensive against the Kurdish armed group. Turkey has been buffeted by increased fighting between its military and the outlawed PKK, which has waged a three-decade war for greater Kurdish autonomy.
“Seventeen targets of the separatist terrorists were hit with precision and neutralised” in the Hakkari province on the border with Iran and Iraq, the army said. In ground fighting, security sources said the PKK attacked a military station in Sirnak, a province adjacent to Hakkari, and killed one soldier in a 20-minute battle.
One PKK fighter was killed in clashes in Bingol province, the local governor’s office said. NATO member Turkey started what it called a “synchronised war on terror” last month, attacking the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIL) group in Syria and the PKK in northern Iraq.