TURKEY-KURDS/CIZRE Three people killed, seven wounded as PKK rebels clash with security forces

Record ID: 142277

  • Title: TURKEY-KURDS/CIZRE Three people killed, seven wounded as PKK rebels clash with security forces
  • Date: 27th August 2015
  • Summary: CIZRE, TURKEY (AUGUST 27, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ARMOURED VEHICLES ON ROAD ARMOURED VEHICLE ON A BRIDGE WITH SOUND OF GUNFIRE VIEW OF THE AREA WITH SOUND OF GUNFIRE VARIOUS OF PEOPLE RUNNING AWAY AS SMOKE RISES FROM THE GROUND SMOKE RISING FROM BEHIND THE BUILDING WITH EXPLOSION SOUNDS SMOKE RISES FROM BUSHES WITH SOUND OF GUNFIRE SMOKE RISING FROM A BUILDING WITH GUNFIRE POPPING NOISE VIEW OF THE AREA, SOUND OF GUNFIRE MILITARY VEHICLES PARKED AT AN EMBANKMENT WITH SOUND OF GUNFIRE FIRETRUCK DRIVING IN THE AREA MILITARY VEHICLES IN TOWN WITH SOUND OF GUNFIRE VARIOUS OF TOWN WITH SOUND OF GUNFIRE VARIOUS OF MILITARY VEHICLES WITH SOUND OF GUNFIRE
  • Embargoed: 11th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4QTIC0IDO6846LSUJJQV6D4Y7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Three people were killed in the town of Cizre on Thursday (August 27) after members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) used rocket launchers to attack a military base inside the town, located near the Syrian border.
    Seven people, including a 7-year-old child and three soldiers, were wounded, security sources said.
    The sharp crack of gunfire echoed throughout the town in the hours following the initial attack, Reuters video footage showed.
    Smoke rose up from areas near the base.
    Fighting between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the military has broken out almost daily over the last month.
    The PKK has been hitting military targets after Ankara resumed air strikes on PKK camps in northern Iraq in what it calls a "synchronised war on terror".
    Ankara has said its military campaign is also designed to tackle Islamic State militants in neighbouring northern Syria. However, it has so far focused on the PKK, raising suspicions among Kurds that the main aim is to check Kurdish territorial ambitions rather than to rout the Islamist insurgents.
    The violence has left a peace process with the PKK, begun by President Tayyip Erdogan in 2012, in tatters. Erdogan said last month the process had become impossible, although neither side has so far declared the negotiations definitively over.
    The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and European Union, launched its insurgency in 1984 to press for greater Kurdish rights. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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