ANKARA
A twenty-four-year-old man died Tuesday morning and two were wounded, one of them critically, in clashes with security forces over the demolition of a statue of outlawed Kurdish worker's party (PKK) militant in Lice district of Diyarbakir.
The Turkish military confirmed it had demolished the controversial PKK statue on Tuesday morning in a written statement on its website.
The statue of one of the founders of PKK Mahsum Korkmaz, who died in 1986, was erected last Friday, August 15th, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the first battle against Turkish forces.
Diyarbakir governor's office, on Sunday, filed a criminal complaint and demanded an investigation into the erection of the statue.
A group of demonstrators allegedly hurling stones and fireworks rallied in the vicinity of the statue and some of the demonstrators opened fire, claimed the security forces. The security forces shot back and that was when Mehdi Taskin was killed. Another person is in a critical condition in a Lice hospital.
"The military units immidiately fired back at the 200-250 strong terrorist group, who carried out an armed attack during the demolition of the statue," said an official statement on Turkish General Staff's website.
