One police officer and three militants were killed in clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish insurgents in southeast Turkey’s largest city of Diyarbakir on Tuesday, security sources said, as local authorities declared a curfew. The renewed surge in fighting came after 37 people were killed in an Ankara car bombing that security officials said involved two fighters, including one woman, from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Reuters reported. Following the bombing, the Turkish military launched airstrikes on Monday and struck northern Iraq’s Qandil mountain area where the PKK’s main bases are, and the military said 45 PKK insurgents were believed to have been killed. PKK fighters blocked roads and halted vehicles in Baglar’s Kaynartepe neighborhood and clashed with security forces sporadically through the night as a police helicopter flew overhead, witnesses said. Violence has surged in the mainly Kurdish southeast since a 2-1/2 year ceasefire with the PKK collapsed in July. The militants have focused their strikes on security forces in southeastern towns, some of which have been under curfew.
