Alwaght- Turkey on Sunday re-imposed an open-ended curfew in the mainly Kurdish southeastern city of Cizre in its war on Kurdish militants.
The new open-ended curfew came into effect at 1600 GMT after thousands of Cizre locals turned out for the funerals of 16 people killed in violence during the previous nine-day curfew that also left several buildings in ruins.
With over one-and-a-half months of fighting between Turkish security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) , three police officers were killed by Kurdish militants in two separate attacks in the southeast.
The Turkish government said that up to 32 Kurdish militants were killed during the previous curfew imposed in Cizre in an operation against suspected PKK members.
But the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has said 21 civilians were dead after the operation, which deprived residents of access to essential amenities and triggered food shortages.
Cizre is a city of 120,000 people on the border with Syria and also close to Iraq. The city was a key part of the government's drive that started in July to cripple the PKK in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.
Elsewhere Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has asked Turkey to coordinate with Baghdad its military campaign against positions of PKK in northern Iraq.
"We are for the security of Turkey. Turkey has the right to defend itself," al-Jaafari said on Sunday. "But there must be coordination on the ground with the Iraqi government and Iraqi armed forces."
Al-Jaafari also called on Turkish forces to avoid residential areas in their military operations.
Critics accuse Erdogan of re-igniting the fighting with the Kurds, after more than two years of peace efforts, for electoral gains. Opponents say he aims to rally nationalist votes around the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and discredit a pro-Kurdish party whose electoral gains in an election in June deprived the AKP, which he co-founded, of its parliamentary majority.
Analysts also doubt Turkey's claims of supporting the military campaign against the ISIS terrorist group in Iraq and Syria, as its army is attacking Kurds who have been crucial to stopping the advances of ISIS.
Turkey's military has carried out numerous airstrikes and ground incursions into Iraqi territory in pursuit of the PKK over the past decades.
The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since 1980s. The conflict has left tens of thousands of people dead.