ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The death toll in days of clashes in Turkey climbed to nearly 70 on Saturday, with nearly all the dead from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the official Anadolu Agency reported. On Saturday, one soldier was killed and 22 wounded in ongoing clashes with Turkish forces, the agency said. It quoted unidentified Turkish security officials as saying their forces killed 62 PKK fighters in the Kurdish–populated town of Cizre and six others in Silopi in four days of fighting this week. The military released a statement Saturday declaring that operations will continue “until public security is established,” Turkey’s Daily Sabah reported. "The priority of the operations carried out in the towns of Cizre and Silopi is to ensure the safety of both our security forces and the civilians," the statement said. Turkey started major military operations in the southeastern Sirnak province on Monday, aimed at a sweep against the PKK. The PKK has not commented on the death toll in the latest fighting, but a PKK source claimed earlier that Turkish forces were also “attacking civilians.” Some 40,000 people have been killed in the three-decade conflict in Turkey between the government and the PKK, which remains banned in the United States and Europe.
