One Police Officer Killed, 3 Wounded In PKK Attack in Tunceli
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – One police officer was killed and three were wounded in an attack by suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the eastern Turkish province of Tunceli.
PKK militants attacked a security point where police officers were providing security for police lodgings in the Cumhuriyet (Gazik) neighborhood with rocket-propelled grenades and long-barreled weapons at around 8 p.m., September 9. An armed clash erupted when the police officers responded to the attack.
Police officers Aydin Nazillioglu, Hakan Caliskan, Sefa Ari and Sanem Gunduz, as well as a civilian woman passing nearby, were wounded as a result of the initial fire and later transferred to nearby Elazig province after receiving initial treatment in Tunceli, also known as Dersim.
Nazillioglu later succumbed to his injuries in hospital, Hurriyet Daily cited Dofan News Agency as reporting.
PKK militants fled to a forested area of the neighborhood in the aftermath of the attack. Meanwhile, security forces have launched an operation to apprehend the PKK militants.
The attack came one day after more than 15 Turkish police were killed Tuesday in an attack blamed on Kurdish militants as violence in the southeast threatened to spiral out of control and Ankara launched a massive wave of airstrikes against rebel strongholds in northern Iraq.
The violence has left in tatters a 2013 cease-fire aimed at allowing a final peace deal to end the PKK's three-decade insurgency, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The PKK initially took up arms in 1984 with the aim of establishing an independent state for Turkey's Kurdish minority, although lately the demands focused on greater autonomy and rights.
Commentators have expressed alarm that the current situation increasingly resembles the worst days of the PKKs insurgency in the 1990s when attacks on this scale were commonplace.