By Xinhua,
Ankara : At least 19 rebels of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) were killed in a clash with Turkish Security Forces in southeastern Turkey on Saturday, Turkish General Staff said in a statement.
The clash in the southeastern province of Hakkari earlier on Saturday also left four Turkish security officers dead and two soldiers wounded, said the statement posted on the website of the Turkish General Staff.
The PKK staged an armed attack on an outpost on Friday night, thus sparking the clash, said the statement, noting that the operations were still going on in the region, backed by air forces.
The Turkish military has periodically bombed and shelled suspected PKK positions in Turkish-Iraqi border area during the past few months. In February, it launched an eight-day ground incursion into Iraq.
The PKK, listed by the United States and Turkey as a terrorist group, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the over-two-decade conflict.