Several Turkish soldiers killed in major PKK attack

Several Turkish soldiers were killed on Sunday in a major attack in southeastern Hakkari province suspected to have been carried out by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, reports said.

There was no immediate official casualty toll but in a sign of the gravity of the situation Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu broke off a trip to Konya to watch a national football game and summoned an emergency security meeting in Ankara, the reports added.

NTV television said militants staged a mine attack on two military vehicles in a convoy in the Daglica district of Hakkari, a known PKK stronghold.

It added that Turkish F-4 and F-16 warplanes carried out strikes in retaliation against those suspected to have carried out the attack.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted to the attack during a live television interview but also did not give any casualty figures.

"A mine attack has been staged. There will be a very particular and decisive fight there. We are very sad," he told the A-Haber channel.

"The weather conditions were unfavourable. A struggle was being waged under such conditions," he said, adding the attack happened during a "clean-up operation" against PKK militants.

The PKK has been staging daily attacks against the Turkish armed forces as the military presses an over month-long operation against the group in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq.

The violence has left in tatters a 2013 ceasefire aimed at assisting the search for a final peace deal to end the PKK's three-decade insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.    
Source: AFP