Deadly clashes kill 9 in southeast Turkey

9/14/2015 2:03:48 AM

(MENAFN- The Peninsula)Protesters set chairs on fire as they clash with riot police in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern city of Diyarbakir Turkey yesterday.

DIYARBAKIR Turkey: Kurdish militants killed two police officers in a car bomb attack on a checkpoint in southeast Turkey yesterday as authorities imposed a curfew in the region’s largest city Diyarbakir where clashes broke out security sources said.

Turkish forces backed up by helicopters and commandos shelled a mountainous area where the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters had fled after the checkpoint attack in Sirnak province killing six of them the sources added. A police officer was reported killed in another confrontation.

Hundreds of militants and more than 100 police and soldiers have died since a ceasefire collapsed in July shattering a peace process launched in 2012. It is the worst violence Turkey has seen in two decades.

The Diyarbakir governor’s office said it had placed the central historic Sur district under a round-the-clock curfew. Security sources said seven police officers were wounded in clashes there.

In other central areas of the city police fired tear gas and water cannon at small groups of youths who threw stones and tried to set up street barricades in protest against the curfew.

Speaking to reporters near the Sur district the leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas called for the Turkish state and PKK leadership across the border in Iraq’s Qandil mountains to halt the violence and return to peace talks.

“Both Ankara and Qandil must take a position that responds to the people’s expectation with a clear concrete project” he said. “Even if the peace (talks) table has been upturned it is in our power to put it up again.”

The PKK began its separatist insurgency in 1984 triggering a conflict that has killed more than 40000 people. The group which says it is now fighting for greater Kurdish autonomy is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey the European Union and the United States.Reuters

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