A village guard and a soldier were killed and 15 more were injured in a bomb attack organized by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the eastern province of Van.
The attack happened when a bomb-laden car was detonated in front of a gendarmerie post around 00.20 a.m. on Sunday.
Turkish General Staff released a statement, informing that a village guard and a soldier were killed in the attack while 10 soldiers and 5 more village guards were injured.
The statement wished God’s mercy upon the fallen soldiers and village guards and conveyed condolences to their families and friends, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and Turkish nation.
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.