A tree blocks a road in front of burnt trucks reportedly set on fire by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in Tunceli, eastern Turkey, on August 2. AFP
Reuters/Diyarbakir
Turkish warplanes hit Kurdish rebel targets in southeastern Turkey on Tuesday, Dogan news agency reported, hours after two soldiers were killed by a mine laid by militants in a neighbouring province.
Turkish F-16 jets carried out a 35-minute assault on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in Daglica, in Hakkari Province near the border with Iraq, whose northern mountains offer a relatively safe base for the insurgents.
Violence has swept eastern Turkey since last month, when the outlawed PKK ramped up attacks against Turkish security forces and Ankara launched reciprocal air strikes against its fighters in Turkey and northern Iraq.
A senior EU official expressed concern the violence could jeopardise any efforts to end the PKK's three-decade insurgency. The prospect of unrest in a country bordering both Iraq and Syria, focus of Islamic State activity, has aroused broader disquiet among NATO allies.
Shortly before the air strike, two soldiers were killed when the military vehicle they were travelling in was hit by a blast from a remote controlled homemade mine planted by the PKK in neighbouring Sirnak province, the army said. Two other security personnel were injured in the incident.
The deaths bring the number of Turkish security forces killed by the PKK since July 20 to at least 18, the worst bloodshed since a ceasefire agreed in 2013.
The PKK announced it was stepping up attacks in mid-July over what it said were ceasefire violations by the Turkish state. Violence has intensified since Turkey began an air campaign against PKK camps in northern Iraq on July 24, in what Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called a "synchronised fight against terror".
Turkish jets have also hit Islamic State positions in Syria, and Turkey has granted permission to the U.S.-led coalition targeting the militants to use its air bases to launch further raids.
the Turkish Energy minister said the PKK had sabotaged the Shah Deniz pipeline, carrying natural gas from Azerbaijan, days after attacking an oil pipeline pumping crude to Turkey from Iraq.
