ANKARA (Sputnik) — Kurtulmus said at a briefing that the number of destroyed houses in the areas of Sur, Silopi, Cizre, Idil and Yuksekova amounts to 6,320.
"It is about 11,000 flats. The projected cost of restoration of these buildings is about 855 million Turkish liras [$294 million]," He said.
Tensions between Ankara and the Kurds escalated in July 2015 as fighting between the PKK, considered to be terrorist by Ankara, and the Turkish army resumed. Ankara has imposed several round-the-clock curfews in Kurdish-populated towns, preventing civilians from fleeing the regions where the military operations are taking place.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan alleges over 5,000 Kurdish insurgents have been killed in the campaign since mid-December, a figure that pro-Kurdish officials contend includes hundreds of civilians.
