MESOP NEWS TODAY: ERDOGAN LASHES HARD CONTRA PKK – Massive Security Operation Launched in Turkey’s South-east

2017-03-07 – MIDDLE EAST ONLINE – Turkish security forces on Monday night launched one of their largest “anti-terrorist” operations in recent years in the restive south-east against Kurdish militants, security sources said. Some 7,000 gendarmerie — who look after domestic security — 600 special forces and dozens of tanks and helicopters were used in an operation in Lice in the largest Kurdish-majority province of Diyarbakir, sources said.

In Lice, 18 villages were placed under strict curfew until further notice, the Diyarbakir governorate said in a statement.The aim of the operation, the governor’s office said, was to “neutralise” members and accomplices of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Fighting renewed after a two-and-a-half-year ceasefire collapsed in the summer of 2015.

When PKK youths launched an insurrectionary movement in several towns in the troubled region, Turkish security forces were sent in with tanks to dislodge them.The new offensive comes over a month before a referendum on whether to create an executive presidency which would expand President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers. http://www.middle-east-online.com