Two paramilitary police killed in east Turkey
Source: Reuters
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, June 26 (Reuters) - Two Turkish paramilitary policeman have been killed in separate mine attacks blamed on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas, security officials said on Tuesday. One member of the gendarme police force -- which fights PKK militants in eastern Turkey alongside the army -- was killed when he stepped on a mine in the southeastern province of Sirnak late on Monday. Another was killed in a similar blast in the eastern province of Agri early on Tuesday, the officials said. Dozens of soldiers and paramilitaries have been killed this year in an escalation of violence between the PKK, which has been fighting for an ethnic homeland since 1984, and Turkish forces. That has led to calls from the army for an operation into northern Iraq to deal with Kurdish rebels based there but while the government has said it agrees with the army and an operation could be launched, it has not reconvened parliament to approve such a move. At the weekend, a PKK guerrilla hijacked an oil tanker truck and blew it up at a gendarme post, killing himself and the truck's driver, but troops had fled in time and escaped unscathed, security officials said.
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