A Turkish soldier and three Kurdish rebels, one of them a woman, were killed in deadly fighting late on Tuesday in Tunceli province, security sources said.An army sergeant was killed when rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) opened fire on a military outpost near a village in the eastern province of Tunceli, the provincial governor’s office said in a statement. “Three terrorists were killed and their weapons seized in the fighting that ensued,” said the statement carried by the Anatolia news agency. A military sweep of the region is continuing, it said.
Tunceli, a PKK stronghold, is about 600 kilometres north of the Iraqi border, where clashes between the army and the separatists have recently intensified. Ankara has threatened to stage a military incursion into northern Iraq, where the PKK takes refuge.