Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told journalists on Tuesday that security forces “neutralized” 609 terrorists, including 37 "high-ranking" terrorists since he took office in June. Some 502 two among them were members of the PKK, Yerlikaya said at a meeting with journalists based in the capital, Ankara. Others were members of Daesh and far-left terrorist groups. “Neutralized” is used by authorities to describe terrorists captured dead or alive.
As he summed up his 180 days in office, Yerlikaya said they conducted more than 13,000 counterterrorism operations across Türkiye and in operations against the “separatist” terrorist group PKK, 53 terrorists were captured dead while 363 terrorists were captured alive. He said another 82 terrorists from PKK surrendered.
“Our vision is to cross off terrorism from security priorities of Türkiye by wiping out terrorist groups,” Yerlikaya said.
The minister said they were also resolute in the fight against the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ), which was behind the July 15, 2016 coup attempt. He said they carried out 2,839 operations within the past six months against FETÖ and detained 4,482 suspects.
In the fight against migrant smuggling, Yerlikaya said they stepped up efforts on the issue and carried out 3,801 operations in the past 180 days and detained 6,108 suspects. He said irregular migration has been one of the most important global issues.
Yerlikaya noted that Türkiye is home to more than 3.2 million Syrians in “temporary protection” (refugee) status. He added that the total number of migrants in Türkiye, including those with residence permits, was above 4.6 million. He said their operations since June intercepted 173,550 irregular migrants and they prevented entry of 106,000 migrants through Türkiye’s borders.
