Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.14
By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:
The militants of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have attacked a police station in Turkey's Mardin province, Milliyet newspaper reported on Jan.14.
Reportedly, two high-ranking police officers were injured as a result of the attack.
PKK supporters blocked a number of roads in the province after the representatives of law enforcement agencies arrived at the scene. However, the police managed to unblock the roads.
Earlier, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan said the PKK militants will lay down their arms on May 15, 2015.
Ocalan said that after the PKK militants lay down their arms, they will leave Turkey and move to the territory of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq.
Ocalan was arrested in Kenya on Feb. 15, 1999 and handed over to Turkish authorities. He was imprisoned on the island of Imrali in the Marmara Sea. Initially, he was sentenced to death penalty. However, later the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has continued for over 25 years and claimed over 40,000 lives.
The UN and the EU listed the PKK as a terrorist organization.
The process of a democratic settlement of the Kurdish problem in Turkey kicked off in 2009, following which a part of the PKK militants left the country's territory and moved to the neighboring Iraq.
Edited by SI
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu