A Turkish soldier was killed during a clash with the rebels of the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey on Friday, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported Saturday. The Turkish security forces, who have been conducting operations in the rural area in Cukurca town of Hakkari province close to the Turkish-Iraqi border, clashed with a group of PKK members late on Friday. A Turkish sergeant was killed in the fire opened by the PKK, according to the report.
Officials were quoted as saying that operations have been continuing in the region, Xinhua reported.
Listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK took up arms in 1984 to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey. Some 40,000 people have been killed in conflicts involving the PKK for the past two decades.
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