Turkey to take fight to Kurdish militants as violence flares
DIYARBAKIR: Turkey will take the fight to Kurdish militants in the southeast to prevent them from “spreading the fire” from neighbouring Syria and Iraq into the country, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Tuesday, as violence flared up again.
Since the collapse of a ceasefire with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in July, the mainly Kurdish southeast has been wracked by clashes between security forces and PKK fighters and subjected to frequent curfews.
On Monday, two men were shot dead in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, while security forces have killed six militants in Mardin since Friday.
Clashes broke out early on Tuesday in Diyarbakir and one policeman was injured, security sources said.
Gunfire and explosions rang out in the town of Nusaybin on the Syrian border after a curfew was imposed, with one blast cutting power to some areas, while police fired tear gas and water cannon at protesters, witnesses said.
Davutoglu said that security forces would crack down on the PKK militants to frustrate efforts to “spread the fire” from Iraq and Syria to Turkey.
“Security operations are being conducted,” he said. “We will turn all districts including Cizre and Silopi within this ring of fire into a place of peace, stability and freedom,” he added.
In the towns of Cizre and Silopi near the Syrian and Iraqi border, which were placed under curfew on Monday evening, police armoured vehicles were deployed on hills overlooking the towns and the streets there were quiet overnight, witnesses said.
They said the Habur border gate to Iraq, located some 18 km south of Silopi, was closed overnight as a result of the curfew and closure of the main highway through the town.
Davutoglu said the army had established control along the Iraqi border after “cleansing the mountains of terrorists” and that the PKK had then focused on turning people against the state in urban areas. — Reuters