Three Turkish soldiers killed in Kurdish attack

Three Turkish soldiers were killed in an attack by Kurdish separatist guerrillas in a town near the Iraqi border on Wednesday, military sources said. Seventeen soldiers were injured, four critically, in the attack in Cizre town, the sources told Reuters. The illegal Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) undertook the surprise attack despite heavy winter conditions hampering movement by the army and guerrillas. It came during a visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki who is in Turkey to hold talks on cooperation against the guerrillas, whose cross-border operations from their bases in northern Iraq cause friction between the neighbours. Turkey's military has boosted air strikes against the PKK rebels in northern Iraq in recent weeks. Turkey, the European Union and the United States view the PKK as a terrorist organisation. Around 40,000 people have been killed in fighting between the PKK and the military since 1984, when the PKK took up arms with the aim of establishing an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey.