Seventeen soldiers were injured when terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants detonated a bomb as a military vehicle was passing by in the Yüksekova district of Hakkari province on Monday, Turkey’s General Staff has announced.
The General Staff said four of the soldiers were in critical condition, adding that a manhunt had been launched to capture the PKK terrorists who fled the area.
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.