Rival groups clash in southeastern Turkey, two killed

Clashes between the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) and Turkey's Hezbollah in southeastern Turkey left two people dead and three others injured Saturday, according to an official source.

Members of the Free Cause Party (Huda Par), an affiliate of the Hezbollah, confronted the YDG-H, the youth branch of the PKK, early Saturday in Cizre town of Sirnak province, Xinhua reported, citing the Dogan News Agency.

The report added that the confrontation turned into gunfights in several neighbourhoods.

Police force was despatched to the area, but had difficulties in reaching the streets where the clashes had broken out, due to ditches being reportedly dug by the members of the YDG-H.

The clashes between the PKK and supporters of the Huda-Par have raised fears of further conflict, while recalling bitter memories of the early 1990s when the conflict between the PKK and Hezbollah had claimed hundreds of lives.

Street fights had taken place between the Huda-Par and pro-PKK Kurds in some provinces in southeastern Turkey in October as part of protests over the defence of the Kurdish-populated Syrian city of Ayn al-Arab, also know as Kobane, where clashes had left 42 people dead.