Turkey’s military says it has killed 27 Kurdish rebels

The Turkish military announced Sunday that they have killed 27 members of a separatist Kurdish group during a series of air and ground operations in the Semdinli district of Turkey’s Hakkari Province.

The move came a day after Turkish security forces called an end to operations targeting Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters in the town of Nusaybin near the Syrian border and in Sirnak near the border with Iraq.

The Turkish state has been locked in conflict with Kurdish fighters since last summer when a 2.5-year truce with the PKK collapsed.

However, the state-run Anadolu Agency cited security sources as saying that a small number of PKK militants were killed in those strikes.

Moreover, 7 PKK militants were killed in a clash in Semdinli near the Iraqi and Iranian borders on Saturday, while air strikes in Semdinli on Friday killed 20 PKK fighters, it said. A total of 495 PKK militants and 70 Turkish soldiers have been killed since the operations in the town began on March 14, the local governor’s office said in a statement.

The explosive device went off as a military vehicle went by in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir.

Since then, around 500 security personnel, including troops, police officers and village guards have been martyred and over 4,900 PKK terrorists killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.