Three killed in clash in Southeast Turkey

Diyarbakir, 15 March 2011 (MIA) - Three suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, were killed Tuesday in a battle against army soldiers in southeastern Turkey, AFP reports.

The clash, which follows the end earlier this year of a PKK cease-fire, occurred in a rural area of Şırnak province on Turkey’s border with Iraq, a local security source said.

Soldiers opened fire against the alleged PKK members while on a mission to prevent the infiltration of rebels from northern Iraq, where the outlawed group has rear bases.

The PKK, which declared a unilateral cease-fire in August 2010, called it off last month, denouncing a lack of dialogue with the Turkish government.

The outlawed group said it would not be the first to attack, while vowing to defend itself “more effectively” against Turkish military operations.

In return it demanded an end to all military operations against the PKK, the easing of prison conditions for its jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan and the release of other detained Kurdish politicians.

Speaking following the PKK announcement, the co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, blamed the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government for “wasting such cease-fire periods since 2002” and claimed it has never been genuine on peace issues.

“The AKP only used the peace process as a way to increase its votes and strengthen its power,” BDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş said, calling on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to explain what steps he would now take to resolve the Kurdish issue.

Fighting in southeastern Turkey has lessened significantly since the one-sided cease-fire, which the PKK had extended in November until the general elections in June to push for a peaceful solution of the 26-year-old conflict.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.