ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An improvised explosive device (IED) detonated by a roadside killed at least four villagers and injured 13 others in the Kurdish province of Diyarbakir (Amed) in southeast Turkey on Thursday night, according to the provincial governor’s office.
A statement from the governor’s office blamed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for the incident.
“A vehicle carrying our villagers from the rural district of Kulp in our province - who had gone out to collect wood - was subjected to a hand-made bomb by the separatist terrorist organization [of the PKK] at 18:00 [Thursday], resulting in the martyrdom of four villagers and the heavy injury of 13 others,” read a statement from the office of Diyarbakir governor Hasan Basri.
The PKK has yet to claim or deny responsibility for the explosion.
However, PKK-affiliated media outlet ANF put the blast’s death toll at seven.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the governor, who briefed the President about the explosion.
Blaming the PKK, Erdogan said that “all capacity” of the security forces will be used to catch the perpetrators, according to a statement from the Presidency .
Turkey and the PKK have been in a nearly four-decade-long conflict, resulting in the deaths of 40,000 people, including civilians.
Turkish forces are currently conducting two wide-scale operations against the PKK: stage three of Operation Claw in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and Operation Kiran within its borders.
The PKK has said repeatedly that it does not target civilians, but Turkish security forces and their accomplices.
The incident comes amid a recent clampdown against the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) claims is the political wing of the PKK.
