PKK-Affiliated Group Clashes With Police In Şırnak

A group of people linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) clashed with police in the southeastern province of Şırnak early on Thursday after the group dug trenches to block a road around midnight.

Members of the Patriotic Revolutionist Youth Movement (YDG-H), an affiliate of the outlawed PKK, opened fire at the police, who arrived at the scene in the İdil district. Police responded by firing tear gas and water cannons, and the group threw Molotov cocktails.

Locals locked themselves in their homes in a panic. There were no reports of casualties during the shootout. Several armored police vehicles, which were riddled with bullets in the clash, patrolled the neighborhood for a while after the incident.

The PKK has put up roadblocks, set schools on fire, abducted civilians, killed soldiers in civilian clothes and declared its autonomy in numerous locations in the southeast, despite an ongoing settlement process launched by the government in 2012 in cooperation with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. The settlement process aimed at ending the country's decades-old terrorism problem and Kurdish issue.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)