DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, July 1 (Reuters) - Four members of the Turkish security forces and 12 Kurdish guerrillas were killed in clashes in southeastern Turkey, officials said on Thursday, a further sign of rising violence in the troubled region.
The clashes broke out near the town of Pervari in Siirt province, security sources said on condition of anonymity.
Violence has risen in recent months and more than 50 Turkish soldiers have been killed as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has increased attacks on military installations in the primarily Kurdish southeast.
Late on Wednesday a lieutenant and three village guards — local militia members, who work for the military — were killed, the security sources said. It was not clear when the rebels were killed. Military operations that included helicopter gunships against the PKK guerrillas were continuing.
Four fighter planes also took off from the region’s largest city of Diyarbakir, though their destination was not known.
Turkey uses fighter jets to carry out sporadic attacks on PKK targets in northern Iraq. The PKK uses northern Iraq as a base from where it carries out attacks on military targets.
The outlawed PKK has stepped up attacks on the military after calling off its one-year truce on June 1, dissatisfied with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s concessions to Kurdish demands for reform.
Another Kurdish separatist group, the Kurdish Freedom Hawks killed six people, including a 17-year old girl, in a bomb attack in Istanbul on a bus carrying military personnel and their families last week. It was the first major attack on a city outside of the southeast in two years.
The PKK took up arms against Turkey in 1984 in a bid to carve out an independent Kurdish state. More than 40,000 people, mainly Kurds, have died in the war.
Violence traditionally rises in the southeast, which borders Iraq where most of the PKK is based, in the spring and summer months as warmer weather allows the rebels and the army to move more easily through the region’s mountainous terrain.
