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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey-Kurdistan, July 27 (AFP) -
13h17 - Turkish security forces killed seven armed
rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
in an ongoing security operation in eastern Van
province, security sources said Wednesday.
Fighting erupted when paramilitary gendarmerie
troops, who had been sweeping for the past two weeks
an area where the provinces of Van, Sirnak and
Hakkari converge, made contact with a group of
rebels, the sources said.
The operation is continuing, they said, and made no
mention of casualties on the gendarmerie side.
Violence in mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey
resumed in June 2004 after a five-year break, when
the PKK called off a unilateral truce on the grounds
that Ankara was not doing enough to expand Kurdish
freedoms.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed about
37,000 lives, mostly between 1984 and 1999 when the
PKK, considered a terror group by the United States
and the European Union, waged a bloody campaign for
Kurdish self-rule in the region.
AFP
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