Turkish security forces have eliminated a total of 19 PKK terrorists in northern Iraq in regions close to the Turkish border, the Defense Ministry said Friday.
Some 16 terrorists were targeted with an operation in the Hakurk, Asos, Gara and Metina regions, the ministry said on X.
"We will continue unpredictable, unconventional, rapid and continuous operations to destroy terrorism at its source!" it added.
Separately, Iraqi Kurdistan’s counterterrorism service announced a vehicle that belonged to the PKK was hit by a Turkish drone strike near the northern city of Sulaymaniyah.
A senior PKK member, his driver and a guard were killed in the attack, the statement added.
Türkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in Iraqi territory. The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and massacred over 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.
The group is known for using northern Iraq, near the Turkish border, as a hideout to plot terror attacks and launch attacks both on nearby Türkiye and locals in north Syria.
Ankara and Baghdad have been at loggerheads over Ankara's cross-border military operations against the PKK in northern Iraq, which is controlled by the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Iraq has said the operations are a violation of its sovereignty, but Ankara says they are needed to protect itself.
The neighbors signed a security pact earlier this week to counter the PKK in the region.
Since the start of the year, Ankara has hinted at a final summer offensive against the PKK in both northern Iraq and Syria, where the PKK operates with its local offshoot, the YPG.
Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said recently that the ongoing Operation Claw-Lock, launched in April 2022, would be completed before the winter to sever the ties between Syria and Qandil.
Türkiye aims to wipe out the PKK from its borders and create an approximately 40-kilometer-deep (24.85 miles-deep) security corridor along the Iraqi and Syrian borders.
Both the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) have since ramped up strikes on the “terror corridor” in the region, indicating a wider offensive may already be underway.
