Four Turkish troops killed in attack blamed on Kurd rebels

ANKARA: Four Turkish soldiers were killed on Wednesday in a bombing blamed on Kurdish militants in the restive southeast, the local governor's office said.

Another four soldiers were injured when a handmade bomb detonated as an armoured vehicle drove past in the Yuksekova district of Hakkari province, the governorate said in a statement.

It blamed a "separatist terrorist organisation" -- the official term for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).



The PKK has waged an insurgency in Turkey since 1984, during which over 40,000 people have been killed.

The group is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the United States and the European Union.

After the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in 2015, Turkish military operations intensified while there are frequent PKK attacks on soldiers in the southeast.