Two Turkish soldiers were killed and four wounded in a car bomb attack on their convoy in the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country, the local governor’s office said Sunday.
The attack came after the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebel group threatened to no longer observe a truce, following Turkish air strikes on its positions in northern Iraq.
The car bomb went off as the soldiers were travelling on a road in the Lice district of the Diyarbakir province late Saturday, the statement from the Diyarbakir governor’s office said.
“Two of our personnel were killed in the heinous attack, four were wounded,” said the statement, adding that large-scale operations have been launched to find the perpetrators.
The PKK had on Saturday said that the conditions were no longer in place to observe a fragile ceasefire that has largely held since 2013, following the heaviest Turkish air strikes on its positions in northern Iraq since 2011.
The PKK has for decades waged a deadly insurgency in the southeast of Turkey for self-rule that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. A peace process that began in 2013 has so far failed to yield a final deal.