One soldier was dead in clashes with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Tatvan district of the southeastern Bitlis province on Thursday.
The soldier lost his life on the Tatvan-Van highway near Tokaçlı village after PKK terrorist fired shots on gendarmerie officers controlling the area where a ton of handmade explosives was destroyed early in the morning.
The PKK is designated as a “terrorist organization” by the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), as well as Turkey. There have been repeated clashes between security forces and PKK members since a cease-fire between the government and the PKK’s jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan, collapsed in July of last year.
Since the settlement process launched by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government in 2012 with the PKK to end the country’s long-standing Kurdish problem ended in July, nearly 200,000 locals in the Southeast have been forced to leave their homes due to fighting and curfews.
The authorities have been imposing curfews in towns and districts to flush PKK militants from urban areas in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish Southeast since then.