Chopper crash: Seventeen Turkish soldiers killed

DIYARBAKIR: Seventeen Turkish soldiers were killed on Saturday when their helicopter crashed in southeastern Turkey due to bad weather conditions, including fog, the area’s governor said. The Sikorsky helicopter crashed on Herekol mountain, in the Pervari area of Siirt province, Siirt Governor Ahmet Aydin said. The victims were members of the country’s gendarmerie special forces, he said adding that there were no survivors, he said. The Turkish military has been carrying out operations on the mountain in recent months to flush out militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who have hideouts there. “Today at 7:15 in the morning in the village of Bilgili around Siirt, we got 17 martyr-officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers,” Turkish President Abdullah Gul said in a statement.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11^th, 2012.