ISTANBUL,— Two Turkish security force members were killed and 24 were wounded in a suicide bombing attack overnight by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey’s eastern Kurdish province of Agri, the local governor’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

The attack was carried out with a tractor loaded with two tonnes of explosives on a gendarmarie outpost located in the Dogubeyazit district of eastern Agri province in Turkish Kurdistan, bordering Iranian Kurdistan, the governor’s office said.

One soldier was also killed in Turkey’s southeastern Kurdish province of Mardin when a military vehicle detonated a mine, local media reported. Eight soldiers were also wounded.

Armed attacks by PKK militants in Turkish Kurdistan in the southeast of the country have increased since mid-July, much more so since Turkey began a campaign of air strikes on PKK camps in northern Iraq on July 24.

In what prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu has called a “synchronized fight against terror”, Ankara has granted access of its bases to the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State, however so far the majority of Turkey’s air bombardment has been on PKK targets.

Turkish officials have said the strikes against the PKK are a response to increased violence. Sunday’s attacks have brought the number of security forces killed in attacks blamed on the PKK to at least sixteen, since July 20.

Western allies, including NATO and the United States, have supported Turkey’s actions but several have also urged it not to use excessive force or to let years of peace efforts with Kurdish militants collapse.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan initiated negotiations in 2012 to try to end the PKK insurgency. The ceasefire, though fragile, had been holding since March 2013.

On Tuesday, Erdogan said the process had become impossible and urged parliament to strip politicians with links to the militants of immunity from prosecution.

The leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition has accused Erdogan of launching air strikes in Syria and Iraq to prevent Kurdish territorial and political gains, and of using the war against Islamic State as a cover.

Since it was established in 1984 the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state in Turkish Kurdistan region in the southeast of the country.

But now limited its demands to establish an autonomous Kurdish region and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds, who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 75-million population but have long been denied basic political and cultural rights, its goal to political autonomy. A large Turkey’s Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.

Copyright ©, respective author or news agency, Reuters | Ekurd.net

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