Turkey: Curfew declared in southeast town Silopi as fresh clashes erupt

Diyarbakir, Turkey: Turkey declared a curfew in the southeastern town of Silopi on Tuesday after Kurdish militants launched a rocket attack on an armoured police vehicle, killing one officer and wounding four, security sources said.

Witnesses said gunfire rang out in the town, near the Iraqi border, through the night while clashes erupted elsewhere in the mainly Kurdish southeast, which is suffering the worst violence in two decades after conflict flared up July 2015. Peace talks with the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group collapsed last year and on Monday President Tayyip Erdogan ruled out reviving them, vowing to stamp out the insurgency.

In Silopi, local authorities declared a curfew from 4:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) in an announcement by loudspeaker from mosque minarets and police vehicles, witnesses said. In the town of Nusaybin near the Syrian border, which has been under curfew for three weeks, a PKK rocket attack killed an army major and another officer on Monday, security sources said.

They said two police officers were wounded in a bomb attack on their armoured vehicle on Monday in the Lice district of Diyarbakir province. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the PKK took up arms in 1984. The group, which says it is fighting for autonomy for Kurds, is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and European Union.