Turkish police officer killed, nine wounded in PKK clash

Diyarbakir: One Turkish police officer was killed and nine others were wounded today in a raid to capture a suspected Kurdish militant in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, the governor's office said.

The officers launched the operation to arrest a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the district of Kayapinar west of Diyarbakir city centre, it said in a statement.

When they entered the building, clashes broke out during which a hand grenade was detonated and 10 officers were wounded. One later died after being taken to hospital.

Local resident Zahide Kilinc said she woke up to the sounds of gunfire around 6:00 AM and saw officers open fire on a flat nearby.

"Of course we were scared, the children were scared. It was like there was an attack on our home and not the opposite flat," she told AFP.

The governor's office said a member of the PKK was also killed during the clashes.

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

Over 40,000 people have been killed since it launched its insurgency in Turkey in 1984.

Fighting intensified in the southeast between Turkish security forces and the PKK after the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in 2015.

Six soldiers and two military security guards were killed yesterday in clashes with the PKK in the province of Hakkari which borders Iraq.

The interior ministry said yesterday its security forces killed 46 members of the "separatist terror organisation" -- Turkey's official term for the PKK -- in Sirnak and Hakkari in the southeast and 
Tunceli in the east, state-run news agency Anadolu said.

It was not possible to independently verify the toll.