A soldier and a police officer were killed in Nusaybin district of the southeastern province of Mardin on Sunday as clashes intensified between the Turkish security forces and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the area.
Spc. Sgt. Vedat Aykut who was heavily injured by sniper fire, was immediately taken to Nusaybin State Hospital where he died of his injuries while police officer Coşkun Nazilli was killed in an ambush after PKK terrorists detonated explosives.
Clashes between the PKK and the Turkish security forces in Nusaybin have been going since a curfew was imposed on the district on March 14.
Around 20 members of the security forces have been killed during clashes in Nusaybin so far.
Turkish security forces have been trying to clear southeastern towns and cities of PKK terrorists since last July, when a two-year cease-fire with the group collapsed, shattering a settlement process launched by the government in late 2012 to end Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish problem, and triggering the worst violence seen in the region in two decades.
In the meantime, the Turkish General Staff announced on Sunday that four alleged members of the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were detained in Pazarcık district of Kahramanmaraş province in southern Turkey on Saturday.
The alleged ISIL members are foreign nationals who reportedly entered Turkey illegally from Syria.
Along with the PKK attacks, Turkey has also been shaken with ISIL attacks over the past months, which claimed the lives of more than 150 people since last July. A recent attack by ISIL claimed the lives of four people in İstanbul’s Taksim area while it injured around 200 people.