17 soldiers killed in Turkish copter crash

Turkish officials have ruled out terrorism as the cause of Saturday's crash of a military helicopter in which 17 soldiers died. Ahmet Aydin, governor of the southeastern province of Siirt, blamed heavy fog for the crash, Hurriyet Daily News reported. The Sikorski helicopter carrying the soldiers crashed into rocks in the Pervari district of Siirt, he said. "We have reached the bodies," Aydin said. "The cause of the crash is a hundred percent the fog." In a separate incident, Turkish armed forces killed 42 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party in operations in the eastern province of Hakkari. In a statement released Friday, the Hakkari governor's office said weapons including rocket launchers, mortars and explosives were seized.