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Yerevan /Mediamax/. Minister of Defense of NKR Lyova Mnatsakanyan has today stated that the Azerbaijani side has suffered 22 casualties and 60-80 wounded as a result of recent ceasefire violations.
Source: Horizon.
© AFP/File | Turkish police stand near a building where two police officers were found shot dead at their home on July 22, 2015 in the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar
ISTANBUL (AFP) –
Two Turkish police were killed in the southern town of Adana Monday in an attack by Kurdish rebels, a press report said, quoting local officials.
Assailants riding on a motorcycle opened fire on a police car outside a hospital and then fled, the Dogan press agency said.
One died instantly and the second died after emergency surgery, it said, quoting the local governor, Mustafa Buyuk.
“Early indications are that it was an attack by the terrorist organisation,” Buyuk said, in a reference to the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The Turkish government launched a major campaign against the PKK in late July, aimed at forcing it out of strongholds in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.
The group has hit back hard, killing dozens of police and soldiers in almost daily bomb and shooting attacks.
Nearly 150 soldiers and police have been killed in attacks since July blamed on the PKK compared with more than 1,300 rebels, according to pro-government media. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) says dozens of civilians have been killed in police and military operations.
The escalation comes ahead of snap elections on November 1.
The violence has shattered a two-year-ceasefire which had stoked hopes of an end to the PKK’s three-decade insurgency, in which more than 40,000 people have died.
A Karabakh soldier at the border with Azerbaijan border
STAPANAKERT—Heavy fighting continued over the weekend along the border of Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, with Artsakh’s Defense Ministry announcing Monday that 10 Azerbaijani soldiers were killed in sporadic fighting.
The Artsakh Defense Ministry also said that statements made by it Azerbaijani counterpart that seven Karabakh soldiers were killed were false adding that the Artsakh Army had repelled Azerbaijani attacks in the Akna region, which resulted in 10 dead and several wounded Azerbaijani soldiers.
This followed a week of heavy artillery attacks by Azerbaijani forces against targets in both Artsakh and Armenia, which left three civilians—majority of them elderly women—dead in Armenia’s Tavush region and four Karabakh soldiers dead along what is commonly known as the “line of contact.”
The Artsakh Army also reported Friday that 15 people were injured as a result of the Azerbaijani attacks that left four servicemen dead.
Armenian authorities vowed retaliation, with President Sarkisian on Saturday criticizing the international community’s false parity toward Azerbaijan and the Armenian Defense Ministry ordering its units to deploy heavy artillery in response to Azerbaijani attacks.
This latest escalation of combat took place against the backdrop of talks in New York by Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers with the co-chairmen of the OSCE Minks Group, which is tasked with resolving the conflict peacefully.
After angry talks with Elmar Mammdyarov, Azerbaijan Foreign Minister, Armenia’s top envoy Edward Nalbandian stated that it would accept a Minsk-Group proposal to set up mechanism to investigate cease fire violations in the region.
“Armenia has agreed to discuss the details of the mechanism, and we urged Azerbaijan to do the same,” the co-chairmen said in n a joint statement on Friday’s talks in New York between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers. The co-chairs were present at the talks.
After the talks, Mammadyarov gave no indications that Baku will stop effectively rejecting the idea. “The creation of a mechanism for investigating armed incidents can be considered only if it does not serve to preserve the existing status quo … and does not justify [Armenian] occupation,” he told the official Azertag news agency.
Instead, Mammadyarov reiterated Baku’s calls for Armenians to “withdraw from occupied Azerbaijani territories,” referring to areas liberated by Artsakh Liberation forces during the war, and urged the co-chairmen to present a timetable for the “withdrawal.”
In Yerevan, Armenian Revolutionary Federation Parliamentary bloc secretary Aghvan Vardanyan noted that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries had the power to reduce tension on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and prevent the killing of innocent civilians, if they so willed and proceeded to work together accordingly.
During discussions in the National Assembly on Sept. 25, Vardanyan further stated that the escalation of violence by Azerbaijan fit into an established pattern, in which ahead of every high-level meeting Azerbaijan resorts to increased violence.
“There are two ways of resolving this. One is to meet force with greater force, which I think our army is already doing to a degree. The second is—and I am deeply convinced of this—that if the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries were willing and worked together, they could at the very least sharply reduce the tension and the instigation [of violence] by the enemy, as well as prevent the killing of innocent people. Ahead of every meeting regarding the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan resorts to such [violent] actions, in which case our hopes rest in the strength of our army,” Vardanyan was quoted as saying by Yerkir Media.
Major Yavuz Sonat, the commander of the Tunceli Provincial Gendarmerie Command
A Turkish major has been killed after clashes broke out with a group of outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the country’s eastern Tunceli Province.
On Saturday, the PKK militants attacked Turkish soldiers near the village of Yaprakli, seriously injuring Yavuz Sonat, the commander of the Tunceli Provincial Gendarmerie Command.
Sonat succumbed to his injuries after he was transferred to Fırat University Hospital.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan condemned the attack, saying those responsible for “such bloody acts” would be brought to justice.
Three Turkish security forces have lost their lives in clashes in the region since Friday.
Furthermore, five civilians and more than 30 PKK militants have since been killed in Sirnak Province.
Turkish army has been targeting PKK positions and hideouts in Gara, northern Iraq.
Ankara launched an operation against PKK militants in the country, as well as PKK positions in neighboring Iraq in July. The operation led the PKK to declare a shaky ceasefire deal in place since 2013 null and void.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to eliminate the outlawed PKK, which has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since 1984.
YEREVAN. – Armenian serviceman Harut Hakobyan, who was today killed as a result of shelling by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, was from Avshar village of Armenia’s Ararat province.
According to the sources of Armenian News – NEWS.am, Hakobyan lived with his mother, elder sister and brother. His father died several years ago. Hakobyan’s mother is a farmer.
Harut Hakobyan was recruited on July 3, 2015.
The Azerbaijani Armed Forces shelled at one of the north-eastern protection areas of the NKR Defense Army unit today at about 5:30 p.m. The fire was opened from Turkish-made TR-107 reactive rocket propelled howitzers. Consequently, NKR Defense Army soldiers Norayr Mikayel Khacatryan (b. 1995), Robert Suren Mkrtchyan (b. 1995), Harut Maxim Hakobyan (b. 1997) and Karen Gevorg Shahinyan (b. 1997) died from shrapnel wounds. There are also wounded.
Ali Kayalar – ISTANBUL
Some 400 Turks who joined the ranks of jihadist fighting in Syria and Iraq have been killed so far, as 900 more were still with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a foreign ministry official told Hürriyet Daily News during a meeting on Sept. 17.
In addition to the 900, some 200 to 300 joined al-Nusra, a jihadist group in Syria linked to al-Qaeda.
“Currently, we believe that there are about 900 in ISIL, and close to 300 hundred with al-Nusra,” the official said, while responding to a question on the number of Turks among foreign fighters in neighboring Syria and Iraq.
“We suspect there might be more people going and coming back. We do not know if any of them are opportunistic money-mongers, fixers, radicals or how many of them are there for curiosity. But our tendency is not to believe them when they say they were just a cook there,” the official said, adding the ministry is demanding more international coordination in its efforts to block the movement of foreign fighters.
Commenting on recently escalating attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the official said more than half of the 120 fallen police officers and soldiers were killed in Body-Borne Improvised Explosive Device (BBIED) and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks rather than direct clashes.
Many of the 16 soldiers killed the in the roadside bomb attack in southeastern Hakkari’s Dağlıca on Sept. 6 were not a part of the personnel involved in the direct fight but responsible for detecting road bombs.
“There have been only one or two clashes in the sense of a ‘real’ clash,” the official said, adding the PKK has chosen instead to attack with bombs.
“This is going to be a long effort,” the official said, on the efforts to cut the PKK’s resources.
The official also said the act of going to a place and receiving terrorism training should be criminalized, as many young people who receive training usually return after three months with knowledge which makes them a risk to society.
September/18/2015
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) says its militants have killed 31 Turkish soldiers in an attack and ensuing clashes in southeast Turkey.
According to the PKK-affiliated ANF news agency, a total of 31 soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel, were killed in the militants’ attacks in the Daglica district of the southeastern Turkish province of Hakkari on Sunday.
At least six other soldiers were also injured in the offensive, said the agency, adding that the death toll is likely to go higher.
Following the deadly incident, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called an emergency meeting overnight to address the worsening security conditions in the country.
But the Turkish army said on Monday that it lost 16 soldiers in the PKK attacks a day earlier. “Sixteen of our comrades in arms were martyred” in Sunday’s clashes, read a statement from the army.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Hürriyet Daily reported that 150 PKK militants took part in Hakkari’s deadly operation in which 400 kilograms of explosives were used, adding that 19 Turkish soldiers were killed in the fatal incident.
Earlier in the day, the Turkish army said that it has launched retaliatory attacks against the PKK positions.
At least 13 PKK positions were targeted by two Turkish F-4 and two F-16 warplanes during a “heavy air campaign” in the southeast of the country, the army said.
The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. The conflict has left tens of thousands of people dead.
There has been renewed conflict between the PKK and Turkish security forces since July. Turkey has been launching airstrikes against purported Daesh targets in Syria as well as PKK positions in Iraq after a Daesh bomb attack left 32 people dead in the southeastern Turkish town of Suruc on July 20.
This file photo shows soldiers inspecting the site of a PKK attack near Dağlıca in 2007 which killed 12 troops. (Photo: Today’s Zaman)
The Turkish military said on Monday that 16 soldiers were killed and six others were wounded in a clash over the weekend that erupted following an attack by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Dağlıca area of Hakkari.
According to reports, the clash began at around 3 p.m. on Sunday and pro-PKK websites reported on it at around 7 p.m. The news of the ambush and the ensuing clash was not reported on by Turkish news agencies until 9 p.m.
The private Cihan news agency reported that the clash erupted after PKK terrorists remotely detonated landmines planted beforehand while two armored military vehicles were passing, and opened fire on the vehicles at the same time. Helicopters and special forces backed up the troops during the clash, which lasted for many hours, according to Cihan.
The clash marks a crescendo in a deadly stream of attacks since July, which officials said had already claimed the lives of at least 70 members of the security services and hundreds of PKK terrorists.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization in both Europe and the United States.
Both sides, the Turkish government and the PKK. blame the other for the collapse of the cease-fire in July, which has left efforts to bring a lasting end to the Kurdish issue in tatters.
The location of the ambush had painful symbolism for the Turkish armed forces. It took place near the village of Dağlıca, the scene of a PKK attack in 2007 in which 12 soldiers were killed and eight captured.
Source: Zaman
Two police officers were killed and three colleagues were injured early Sept. 6 in an armed action by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in response to continued operations by security services against the militant group’s youth wing in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır.
Police forces conducted operations against members of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) early Sept. 6 in the central district of Sur to cover trenches that have been dug by locals to protect residents against attacks by security forces.
Members of the YDG-H responded to the operations with rocket-propelled grenades, killing two police officers and wounding three others.
A number of people were also detained as part of the operation, while citizens were warned not to leave their houses.
Gunfire and the sounds of bombs were occasionally heard in the neighborhood.
Meanwhile the Diyarbakır Governor’s Office has declared a curfew in the district until further notice.