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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Aug 11 (AFP) - 9h38 - Two
soldiers died and four were injured early Thursday
in the latest of a series of clashes with Kurdish
rebels in the east of the country, local security
sources in Tunceli province said.
The fighting took place near the town of Tunceli,
when rebels of the Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK)
attacked an army patrol, they said.
Troops supported by helicopters were hunting the
rebels, they added.
Clashes between the PKK and the army in the
predominantly Kurdish-inhabited east of the country
have been on the rise since June last year, when the
rebel group, which both the United States and the
European Union classify as terrorists, said they
were ending a truce they had declared five years
earlier.
The latest attack came a day before Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was due to visit
Diyarbakir, the main city in the Kurdish majority
region.
During his visit on Friday, Erdogan is expected to
appeal for reconciliation in the two-decades-old
Kurdish conflict, local media say.
Between 1984 and the declaration of the truce by the
PKK in 1999, fighting between the PKK and the army
is estimated to have left some 37,000 people dead.
AFP
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