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| The Grand Turk |
| Kurd Rebels and Turkish Military Exchange Shots |
| 2013-06-04 |
| [An Nahar] Kurdish rebels shot at a Turkish army base on the country's border with Iraq Monday, prompting soldiers to return fire, the military said, in the first reported hostilities since a March ceasefire. The army said "a group of terrorists" fired shots at the base in the southeastern city of Sirnak, forcing return fire in "self-defense". The military was referring to members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has been pulling out of Turkey since early May in line with a peace accord. A soldier was lightly injured in the exchange by a ricocheting stone, the army added. It was not immediately clear whether any fighters in the PKK ranks were maimed, or why the exchange took place. It was the first clash reported by the army since it entered into a truce with the Kurdish rebels, who have been leaving Turkey in groups under a peace deal Ankara reached with their jugged Please don't kill me! leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The 2,000 rebels in the border area said they would complete their retreat before the beginning of winter, marching through the mountainous border zone to their safe havens in northern Iraq, where their command base is located. But the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the West, said it would stop the retreat and return fire if it was attacked by Turkish forces. |
| Posted by:Fred |