Twenty members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were killed by Turkish forces during an operation Thursday, Oct 18, in the Çukurca district of the southeastern province of Hakkari near the border with Iraq, Today’s Zaman reported.

Unmanned aerial vehicles detected a group of some 30 PKK rebels and dropped bombs on the area, killing 20 of them.

Earlier, PKK members armed with mortars and rifles launched raids on two military outposts in the same district, killing three Turkish soldiers.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the PKK took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out a Kurdish state.