6 soldiers, 30 Kurdish rebels killed in Turkey

DIYARBAKIR: Six Turkish soldiers and 30 Kurdish militants have been killed in the past 24 hours in attacks and clashes across Turkey’s turbulent southeast region, security sources and the army said on Tuesday.
An estimated 57 people, including eight civilians, were wounded in the attacks, they said.
Thousands of militants and hundreds of civilians and soldiers have been killed since the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) resumed its insurgency last summer following a 2-1/2-year cease-fire and peace process.
The government has ruled out any return to the negotiating table and has vowed to crush the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
The security sources said operations in Sirnak province and in neighboring Iraq and Syria had been stepped up and that gunfire and explosions could be heard in the area where earlier one soldier was killed and three others wounded.
A soldier was also killed and four wounded in an explosion in Daglica, a village in Hakkari province near the Iranian border, during clashes with the PKK, the army said.
Two soldiers were also killed during clashes with the PKK in the border town of Nusaybin near Syria, the army said in a statement later on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu put the death toll from a car bomb attack overnight that targeted a Turkish gendarmerie base in the town of Hani at two. The army said 47 people, including eight civilians, had been wounded in that attack.