Turkey's state-run news agency says security forces have killed five suspected Kurdish militants in an operation close to a tourist resort near the Mediterranean coast.
Anadolu Agency said a group of seven suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, were located Thursday in a forest area in the town of Koycegiz, north of the resort of Marmaris. Five were killed in a joint operation by police and the gendarmerie while two militants escaped.
The operation came as Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said that the Kurdish militants, who infiltrate from Iraq and Syria by land for attacks, were trying to reach Turkey's Mediterranean coast by sea from the Syria's coastal Latikia region.
The PKK is waging a three-decade long insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of people.
