The past year was a year of defeat for all terrorist groups, Turkey’s Interior Ministry spokesperson Ismail Çataklı said Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters at the annual press briefing in the capital Ankara, Çataklı said this year will be even worse for terrorists. He continued by saying that no cave or cells will harbor them in the next year.
There are fewer than 156 PKK terrorists left in the mountains and they are afraid to leave their caves, Çataklı said.
Turkish security forces carried out 143,321 counterterrorism operations, including 124,519 in rural areas and 19,162 in cities in 2021.
Some 1,140 PKK terrorists were killed in the operations, including 84 senior figures, 11 of whom were on the red list, two on the blue, five on the green, 24 on the orange and 35 in the gray category of the ministry’s wanted terrorist list.
The wanted list is divided into five color-coded categories, with red as the most wanted, followed by blue, green, orange and gray.
Security forces also persuaded 200 terrorists to give up arms and surrender in 2021, while only 51 people joined the terrorist group in 2021.
As of December 2021, there were only 156 PKK terrorists left in the country, according to Çataklı.
Security forces destroyed 1,548 caves, shelters and hideouts used by the PKK and confiscated 1,005 weapons, including rockets, mortars and rocket launchers, hand grenades, as well as mines and improvised explosive devices.
