ISTANBUL (AFP) - Turkey's defence minister on Friday (March 5) blamed bad weather for a military helicopter crash that killed 10 soldiers and a senior commander in the country's restive southeast.

Lieutenant General Osman Erbas, who headed the army's 8th Corps based in the eastern Elazig province, was among those killed in Thursday's accident. The crash was the deadliest since 13 soldiers died in the southeastern Sirnak province near Turkey's border with Syria and Iraq in 2017.