MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Irmak noted that the number of civilian victims is much greater than the number of killed Kurdish fighters.
"As far as I know, over 200 people have been killed in two months. But the number of victims has exceeded 500 since the beginning of the conflict, that is from September. Over 50 of them are children. At least 120 women and many senior people were killed… And the figures are rising," Irmak told RIA Novosti in an interview.
In December 2015, the Turkish authorities declared a curfew in a number of southeastern regions where armed clashes between Ankara forces and Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)'s fighters continue. The Turkish General Staff has said that about 850 Kurdish militants have been killed since mid-December. Kurdish activists, in turn, argue that most of the dead were civilian victims.
The Kurds, Turkey's largest ethnic minority, are striving to create their own independent state. The PKK was founded in the late 1970s to promote the self-determination for the Kurdish community and is considered to be a terrorist organization by the Turkish authorities.
