Four Turkish police officers have lost their lives and two others sustained injuries in a roadside bomb explosion that targeted their patrol vehicle in Turkey’s southeastern and Kurdish-populated province of Diyarbakir.

A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said militants with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, also known as the PKK, detonated the explosives near an excavation site in the Sur district of the province, situated 676 kilometers east of the capital, Ankara, on Monday afternoon as a police vehicle was passing by.

Video footage, broadcast by the private Dogan news agency, showed ambulances, a fire truck, and security forces arriving at the scene of the blast.

Hospital sources said one of the wounded victims was in critical condition.

The governor’s office later condemned the bombing as “an atrocious terror attack” in a statement, adding that police were conducting an operation in the region to arrest the perpetrators.

The statement further vowed that Turkey would continue to fight against terror with determination.

Turkey has declared the PKK a terrorist organization and has banned it. The militant group has been calling for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.

Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against the PKK positions in the country’s troubled southeastern border region as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Source: presstv.com