ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish authorities detained 16 people in the mainly Kurdish southeast for suspected links to terrorism, the local governor’s office said on Thursday, and a security source said three were French nationals.

The 16 were detained following operations carried out against “militants and collaborators” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the southeastern Sirnak province on Wednesday, the governor’s office said in a statement.

The governor’s office did not give details on their nationalities.

The PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the state, is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European Union. More than 40,000 people, most of them Kurds, have died since it first took up arms in the largely Kurdish southeast.