10 Turkish security officials, including soldiers and policemen, were killed in clashes with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Sunday when the terrorist group assaulted police and military outstations in the southeast province of Şırnak, which borderlines northern Iraq.
7 other members of the security services were injured in the fighting. Clashes between Turkish security forces and the terrorist PKK were still in progress, Turkish authorities declared on Monday. Authorities also told that 4 of the injured are reportedly in critical circumstance.
The simultaneous assaults came late on Sunday in Şırnak’s Beytüşşebap zone from 4 different spots aiming several security locations with rocket launchers and long-range weapon system. A clash ensued after private security force reacted to the assaults. At least 20 PKK terrorists were shot down in the clash.
9 of the Turkish security officials were killed at the site of the attacks while one other was later enounced dead at the Şırnak Military Hospital, in accordance with a affirmation issued by the Şırnak Governor’s Office. 7 security officials are still encountering treatment for their injuries at the hospital.
The military sent reinforcements to Beytüşşebap to battle the terrorist group, and operations were continuing on Monday, the governor’s office added up.
The bloody assaults on the police and military outposts came amid ongoing and heated clashes in southeastern Turkey along the border with Iraq. The Turkish military established a big operation in Hakkari’s Şemdinli district last month when PKK terrorists barricaded the road of a village in the region and questioned villagers. Security sources tell more than 150 PKK terrorists have been killed there since the operation started.
The bodies of the soldiers and policemen shot down in Beytüşşebap were initially taken to the province of Diyarbakır via helicopters for an autopsy and then sent to their hometowns. Sources told the fallen soldiers and policemen will be laid to rest after funeral services on Tuesday.
President Abdullah Gül published a written affirmation marking the assaults. He told all of Turkey was profoundly shocked by the attacks. “Whoever made us feel such sorrow will unquestionably be called to account,” read his message.
Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ condemned the attacks when he came out on a live TV program on Monday afternoon. He told that terror had once again demonstrated its horrifying face, this time in Beytüşşebap. “Turkey’s fight against terrorist act will carry on in all possible ways as it has so far,” he told. He also expressed his commiserations to the families of the fallen soldiers and policemen in Beytüşşebap.
Listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the U.S., the PKK has been executing a bleeding warfare in Turkey’s Southeast since 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the battle between the terrorist PKK and Turkish forces since the PKK launched its fight with the intention of establishing a separate Kurdish state in the preponderantly Kurdish Southeast.
The last PKK attack is reminiscent of an earlier bleeding attack by the same terrorist group in the southeastern province of Hakkari in early August. 6 soldiers and 2 village guards were killed and several others injured when PKK terrorists assaulted military outstations in the district of Çukurca.
Moreover, the last major terrorist assault in the country occurred in the southeastern province of Gaziantep, where ten civilians, including 4 babies, were shot down and as many as seventy people were injured. The incident took place on Aug. 20 when a car bomb blew up near a police station.
Inside its borderlines, the Turkish state has accorded more cultural rights to Kurds as a way of facilitating the long-running battle with a important portion of the ethnic minority, but there has been still a good deal of mistrust between Ankara and many Kurds.
The Beytüşşebap assaults have drawn condemnations from the whole of Turkey, with parties, NGOs, university administrations, football clubs and many other groups issuing messages marking the deadly incidents.
Republican People’s Party (CHP) spokesperson Haluk Koç told acts of terrorism staged by the PKK have reached a point where Turkey’s sovereignty in southeastern Turkey is called into question. He accused the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government of being responsible for the growing number of deaths of security forces’ personnel in the fight against terrorism and added that government officials should stop making statements about terrorist attacks.
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Secretary-General İsmet Büyükataman lashed out at the terrorist PKK in a message he issued, in which he said the “separatist treacherous people [PKK terrorists] who are targeting the unity and sovereignty of Turkey should understand that they will never be able to attain their heinous objectives, and they will not be able to save themselves from the sorrowful end that is waiting for them.”
Grand Unity Party (BBP) Chairman Mustafa Destici described the attacks in Beytüşşebap as “attempts to damage the brotherhood between the country’s Turks and Kurds that dates back roughly 1,200 years.” “Acts of terror will never be able to damage our brotherhood,” he said.
The attacks also left their mark on the inauguration ceremony of the new legislative year. Supreme Court of Appeals President Ali Alkan condemned the attacks during a speech he delivered during the ceremony. He also expressed his condolences to the families of the slain policemen and soldiers.
The attacks on the military and police outposts also brought the unsafe conditions of outposts back onto the agenda. The outposts, located among high and rocky mountains, were once built as part of Turkey’s efforts to curb smuggling in the region, but have remained neglected. The government vowed to reinforce outposts in the country’s eastern and southeastern regions after bloody terrorist attacks claimed the lives of dozens of soldiers in the past few years, but the reinforcements have not yet been completed.
Turkish Tradesmen’s and Artisans’ Confederation (TESK) Chairman Bendevi Palandöken also condemned the attacks in a message he issued, in which he said the masterminds and stagers of terrorist attacks are “enemies of humanity.” “Those who shed blood will not get away with it. The terrorist group [PKK] which claims the lives of our people will come to an end one day,” Palandöken said, and also made a call on people to act with common sense in the face of growing PKK violence.
