Three policemen martyred in southeastern Turkey

DIYARBAKIR, SIRNAK, Turkey

Three policemen have been martyred in two separate armed attacks carried out by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in southeastern Turkey on Sunday.

The first attack occurred in Kayapinar district of Diyarbakir province. The militants targeted a vehicle carrying traffic policemen at around 01.00 p.m. local time (10:00 GMT), according to the governor’s office.

The policemen, who were critically injured at the scene, have been pronounced dead at hospital, according to medical sources.

Security forces are conducting a comprehensive operation to catch the assailants, while a vehicle and a Kalashnikov gun, which were used by assailants for the attack, have been seized, according to Diyarbakir Governor Huseyin Aksoy.

In the second attack, a police accommodation house in Silopi district of southeastern Sirnak province was targeted with rocket launchers and long barreled weapons by the PKK militants. As a result of a shootout with militants, one police officer was martyred.

The attack in Sirnak is the latest since the PKK, which is designated a terror organization by Turkey, the U.S. and EU, renewed an armed campaign against the Turkish state in the aftermath of the July 20 suicide bombing in Suruc, Sanliurfa province.

More than 60 members of the security forces have been martyred in the violence, while Turkey says land and air operations in Turkey and northern Iraq have killed more than 900 militants.

Deputy Prime Minister Cevdet Yilmaz in Diyarbakir province condemned terror attacks.

“Such attacks target the public itself. With these attacks, they [assailants] are trying to discourage our people and seek to forward some political agenda,” Yilmaz told reporters earlier in Diyarbakir.

“But no matter what they do, we will not waver from the path we know to be true by a single inch.”

The minister also called on citizens to curse these kinds of acts and show a common stance against terrorism.