Five Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists were killed during clashes with Turkish security forces in the Savur district of Mardin province in Turkey’s Southeast on Wednesday.
One soldier was also wounded during the same clashes, which were sparked after the PKK killed five soldiers in a roadside bomb attack in the Derik district of Mardin on Monday.
Six other soldiers were also killed in Şırnak in another PKK attack while the troops were providing security for ongoing construction on a road linking Şırnak and Van provinces on Monday.
In the meantime, the dead bodies of six PKK militants and their weapons were found in a house in the Cumhuriyet neighborhood of Şırnak on Wednesday, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Turkish authorities had conducted direct talks with jailed PKK chief Abdullah Öcalan for several years until a truce in effect collapsed in the summer of 2015. Since then, there have been heavy clashes between the PKK and Turkish security forces.
More than 40,000 people, including 5,500 security force members, have been killed in four decades of fighting between the Turkish state and the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU.