Two police, soldier martyred in southeast Turkey

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey 

Three members of Turkey’s security forces were martyred in two terror attacks in the country’s southeast on Friday, officials said.

In Diyarbakir, the region’s largest city, two police officers were killed in a bomb attack by PKK terrorists in Sur, a district that has been under curfew since Dec. 2, the provincial’s governor’s office said in a statement.

In Cizre, a town close to the Syrian border in Sirnak province, a soldier was killed and four others injured in a rocket attack, the Turkish General Staff said in a statement.

The 12 p.m. local time (1000GMT) PKK attack was carried out at Turkish troops conducted an anti-terror operation to remove barriers built by the PKK in the town, which is also under a security curfew.

The soldier passed away in hospital, the statement said. The four injured troops are not in a critical condition and are receiving treatment.

The PKK -- considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and EU -- resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in late July.

Since Dec. 15, when security forces stepped up operations against the PKK in the southeast’s towns and cities, 240 terrorists have been killed, the military said Friday.

Most of the casualties were recorded in Cizre and Sur as well as Silopi, also in Sirnak province.

Since a fragile two-year peace ended in the summer, more than 200 security force members have been martyred. On Thursday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 3,100 PKK members had been killed in Turkey and northern Iraq over the previous year.