Two Kurdish rebels killed in Turkey's southeast
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, July 20 (Reuters) Turkish security forces killed two Kurdish separatist fighters, one of them a woman, in the border province of Sirnak today, the local governor said.
The two rebels of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) had killed two Turkish officers and another soldier in the area last month, the governor's office said in a statement.
Turkey holds a general election on Sunday in which pro-Kurdish politicians are poised to enter parliament for the first time in more than a decade.
Ankara has raised troop levels in the restive southeast to more than 200,000, with many near the Iraq border, senior sources say, as part of a crackdown on PKK guerrillas.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic Kurdish homeland. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
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