Fatalities rise following renewed clashes in Turkey

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Unconfirmed reports suggest that at least 5 Turkish soldiers have been killed and eleven more wounded over the past week after Kurdish guerrillas reportedly launched renewed attacks on military bases across the country’s Kurdish southeast.

There are also reports of dozens of Kurdish fighters killed in Turkish air power targeting locations that supposedly belong to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara accuses of reescalation of violence.     

The Turkish army said their bases were attacked on Sunday by a car bomb in the town of Ardishi near main city of Van, which they blamed on PKK guerrillas.

The PKK has not claimed responsibility for the action.

The recent confrontations follow a faltering ceasefire that ended major clashes in May, which had been started in June last year and claimed hundreds of lives on both sides of the conflict.    

Four cities, 11 towns and dozens of smaller localities in the Kurdish southeast were the scenes for the violent carnage that forcefully demoralized peace efforts in the country.

The Turkish army has said it targets PKK bases on both sides of the Iraq-Turkey border in retaliation for the guerrillas operations in Turkey. The military has attacked several Kurdish villages in Kurdistan region, which according to them harbored PKK fighters.