PKK claims killing of Turkish policemen in revenge for Syria border attack

ŞANLIURFA

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The military wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) said on July 22 it killed two Turkish police officers in a town on the Syrian border as a reprisal for a suicide bombing blamed on jihadists that killed 32."A punitive action was carried out... in revenge for the massacre in Suruç," the People’s Defence Forces (HPG) said in a statement on its website, accusing the officers of cooperating with jihadists.Two police officers in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa’s Ceylanpınar district near Syria were found dead with gunshot wounds to the head in their shared home, according to the provincial governor.Before the PKK statement, Gov. İzzettin Küçük said the police officers, who were working as riot police, were found dead. Küçük said they were not aware of any terrorist involvement in the incident, adding that an investigation had been opened into the unidentified men’s deaths.Ceylanpınar has been severely affected by fighting between rival factions across the border in Syria. The incident came two days after an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) suicide bombing in Şanlıurfa’s Suruç district that left 32 people dead and around 100 injured.