The Turkish military operation in its unruly southeast region has now led to the deaths of 102 Kurdish rebels, according to the AFP. A death toll released on Saturday put the number dead at 70, with the army claiming that all the deaths were suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). However, five civilians were killed as well, along with two Turkish soldiers who were killed.
The PKK is labeled as a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S., and the E.U. Ten-thousand troops grouped with tanks were deployed to the southeast region to rout PKK supporters from urban areas. While they have usually operated in the countryside, they have recently began to focus on towns and cities in the southeast, digging trenches and setting up barricades in the streets, according to France 24. Airstrikes have also been carried out across the border into northern Iraq, where the PKK also have bases.
Protests took place Sunday in Istanbul and Diyarbakir against the military operations, but Turkish police fired tear gas and plastic bullets into the crowds to make them disperse.
A two-year ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK had crumbled in July, with peace talks between the government and the PKK's jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, falling apart, leading to the revival of a conflict that has been particularly harmful to the mainly Kurdish southeast region of Turkey for over 30 years. Forty-thousand people have been killed since the Kurdish insurgency in 1984, according to Reuters.
Tanks deployed on hills near Cizre, a town near the Iraqi border, have been shelling PKK targets. Around 300 houses have been damaged, with undetonated mortars embedded in buildings.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has stated that he is pressing on with the offensive, calling for the PKK militants to be "annihilated in their trenches."
"We will not get tired," said Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister of Turkey. "We will fight day and night until all mountains, cities, districts and neighbourhoods of this country are cleansed of terror centres."
