Suspected Kurdish militants shot and killed an official in Turkey’s ruling AK Party late on Monday, authorities said, the second shooting of a politician in as many days in the southeast.
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey Suspected Kurdish militants shot and killed an official in Turkey’s ruling AK Party late on Monday, authorities said, the second shooting of a politician in as many days in the southeast.
Deryan Aktert, who headed the party’s branch in Diyarbakir’s Dicle district, was attacked in his office by suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the provincial governor’s office said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though the PKK, in a mounting conflict with government forces in the region bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria, often waits several days before making such announcements.
On Sunday, assailants killed Aydin Mustu, the AK Party’s deputy leader in the Ozalp district of Van, a city 350 km (215 miles) to the east of Diyarbakir.
“The attacks on AK Party officials show that the terrorist organization has entered a new period of heinous attacks. They are enacting new orders to stage suicide attacks, assassinations against ruling party officials,” Prime Minister Binali told his party in parliament on Tuesday.
In a separate operation, Turkish security forces killed two militants and detained five others in a house raid in Cizre town of Sirnak province, near the Iraqi and Syrian borders.
A two-year-old ceasefire with the PKK collapsed in July last year, adding to the turmoil in a region already struggling with the civil war in Syria and the rise of Islamic State there and in Iraq.
“We will continue our operations until our citizens no longer carry any security fear,” Yildirim said in the same speech, referring to Turkey’s three-pronged effort to root out PKK militants, coup plotters and Islamic State along its border in Syria.
The PKK, which launched its separatist insurgency in 1984, is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union – a label it rejects.
Suspected PKK militants set off a truck bomb, killing 15 people at a military checkpoint in Hakkari province on Sunday, officials said.
Police in Diyarbakir said they had also detained 55 officials from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and its sister Democratic Regions Party (DBP) on Tuesday in a counter-terrorism investigation.
Ebubekir Bal, an AK Party parliamentarian representing Diyarbakir, said armed men had attacked Aktert’s office last year.
(Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay, Editing by Ayla Jean Yackley and Angus MacSwan)
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