Turkey presses operation against Kurdish militants

ISTANBUL: Turkey’s military said on Monday it had killed 14 militants in a drive against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the southeast as an envoy from the European parliament denounced what she said were rights abuses by Ankara.

Four PKK militants were killed on Sunday in the Sur district of the mainly Kurdish region’s largest city Diyarbakir, much of which has been under a round-the-clock police curfew since early December, the army said in a statement.

Ten others were killed on Sunday in the Idil district of Sirnak province, neighbouring Syria, it said.

A round-the-clock curfew was imposed in some parts of Idil last week as it become a new focus for the security operations.

Ceasefire breakdown

Violence has surged across southeast Turkey following the breakdown of a two-year ceasefire between Turkish security forces and the PKK last July.

The PKK, which says it is fight- ing for autonomy for Turkey’s large ethnic Kurdish minority, has sealed off entire districts of some towns and cities in the southeast and declared autonomy, prompting the security forces to step up their operations.

The army also said the bodies of five PKK militants had been found during a search in Cizre, a town by the Syrian border that was the focus of military operations for weeks. Home-made explosives, hand grenades, rifles and a large amount of ammunition were seized, it said.

The PKK, considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, launched a separatist armed rebellion against the Turkish state more than three decades ago and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.