PKK militants claim responsibility for bombing attack in eastern Turkey

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group on Friday claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack targeting a police station in the eastern Turkish city of Elazig on Thursday, according to a statement on a PKK website.

At least three police officers were killed and 217 wounded, 85 of them police officers in the attack.

The Elazig bombing followed another blast late Wednesday, also blamed on the PKK, in Turkey's eastern province of Van, which injured at least 73 people, including 20 police.

Since July 2015, over 500 members of Turkish security forces and thousands of PKK members have been killed in confrontations inside Turkey and in northern Iraq, and more than 40,000 people have lost their lives in clashes with the PKK since 1984, when the group first started anti-government attacks.

Turkish PM Binali Yildirim has pledged a fierce response to the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Turkey.

Source : XINHUA