ANKARA: An improvised bomb attack on a military vehicle killed two soldiers in southeast Turkey on Saturday, with state media blaming Kurdish separatists.

The blast came in the province of Batman, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency, which said the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was behind the attack.

Turkey was already in mourning on Saturday for a 15-year-old killed by PKK militants on Friday in the northeastern city of Trabzon.

Kurdish-dominated southeast Turkey has been hit by near-daily violence since the conflict between the PKK and the government flared up in 2015, ending a fragile ceasefire.

The PKK, which has waged an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984, is classed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2017