Turkish Jets Target PKK, State Media Says 20 Militants Killed

Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) positions in southeast Turkey on Wednesday after one soldier was killed in the area, the army said, and state media reported 20 militants were killed in the air strikes.

Clashes between Turkish troops and the PKK, which has bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, have become a daily occurrence since a two-year cease-fire fell apart last month, leaving peace negotiations in tatters. PKK militants armed with rifles opened fire at 7:05 a.m. on troops conducting searches on a road in the Şemdinli district of Hakkari province in Turkey near the borders with Iran and Iraq, the General Staff said on its website.

In the ensuing clash, one soldier was killed and two were wounded and flown to a hospital. Two F-16 jets then destroyed PKK firing positions in the area, where attack helicopters, drones and military reinforcements were also operating.

Some 70 members of Turkey's security forces have been killed since PKK attacks began in early July. The state-run Anadolu news agency has said that more than 900 PKK militants have been killed in southeast Turkey and Iraq since July 22.

The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have since been killed. The violence was halted when the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government and then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan began talks with the group's jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan in 2012.

There appeared to be progress towards a peace deal, but it was undermined before June's parliamentary election by domestic politics and Kurdish involvement in the civil war in neighboring Syria.

More than 40 members of the security forces have been killed in clashes with the PKK since June 17. According to a recent report by the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), a total of 78 civilians have been killed in clashes between the security forces and the PKK and in attacks that targeted HDP offices between June 17 and Aug. 26 of this year.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)