The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack that killed 11 Turkish police officers and wounded 78 people in Turkey's southern province of Sirnak earlier on Friday.

In a statement published on an affiliated website, the PKK also said that it did not target Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey's main opposition party, in an attack in the northeastern province of Artvin on Thursday.

Kilicdaroglu had escaped unharmed a shooting attack carried out by PKK militants on his convoy on Thursday.

Over 600 members of Turkish security forces and thousands of PKK members have been killed in confrontations inside Turkey and in northern Iraq since July of 2015, and Turkish forces have killed over 7000 PKK militants, local media figured.

More than 40,000 people have lost their lives in clashes with the PKK since 1984, when the group first started anti-government attacks.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Turkey.

Source : XINHUA