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Roundup: Turkey in sweeping operations against PKK amid surge of violence

Xinhua, December 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

Turkey stepped up security sweeps against outlawed Kurdish Workers' party (PKK) militants on Thursday in the southeastern provinces amid concerns of escalation of violence in the country.

Turkish army said 25 PKK members were killed during the two-day military operations in the towns of Silopi and Cizre in Sirnak province near the Iraqi border.

Local media said thousands of police and soldiers, equipped with heavy arms, have been deployed in the region.

Turkish leaders vowed to continue military operations against the PKK, a separatist organization that is listed as a terrorist group in Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Also on Thursday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said battles against the PKK will not stop until peace is secured, emphasizing that the southeast of Turkey will be "cleansed (of terrorists)."

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also noted preventing the PKK from "spreading the fire" from Syria and Iraq to Turkey.

Clashes resumed in July when the PKK announced the cease-fire was over following the break of settlement talks that was launched by the government in 2012 hoping to end the Kurdish problem. Both sides blamed each other for the collapse of talks.

Analysts believed the PKK is escalating the conflict in Turkey because its Syrian off-shoot, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), fears that Kurdish gains in Syria's north is at risk because of Turkey's policies in the region.

Turkey has already been facing fallout from the crises in neighboring countries Syria and Iraq. The PYD has been consolidating its gains in Syria while fighting with the Islamic State (IS) in the north of Syria close to Turkish border.

The IS was blamed for three separate deadly suicide attacks in Turkey this year that claimed 140 lives. Turkey considers both the PKK and the IS as posing threat to its national security.

Some 200 security troops have been killed in clashes with the PKK while 200,000 residents were forced to flee amid expanding curfews in Kurdish towns and cities.

The PKK started fighting the Turkish government in 1984, having resulted in the death of more than 40,000 people, mostly Kurds.

The PKK militants have shifted its strategy from fighting in rural areas to urban centers and neighborhoods of towns and cities,.

The government has deployed fresh troops in several towns in the southeast, and raided homes in the battleground neighborhoods where the PKK reportedly turned residential places into arm depots. Endit