Türkiye has eliminated a total of eight PKK terrorists in its southeastern region and northern Iraq, authorities said Friday.
Turkish security forces eliminated four PKK terrorists in northern Iraq, the Defense Ministry said.
The terrorists, detected in the Qandil region in northern Iraq, were eliminated in an airstrike, the ministry said, vowing that the Turkish army's counterterrorism operations will continue “unabated.”
"There is no escape for the terrorists; nowhere is safe for them," it said.
Separately, security forces took out four PKK terrorists in the rural areas of Beytüşşebap district in the Şırnak province during operations code-named “Bozdoğan-44,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
The terrorists included one wanted in the orange category and two wanted in the gray category, Yerlikaya said on X.
Expressing Ankara's determination to fight against terrorism, Yerlikaya added: "We will root out and cast away these traitors from our sacred homeland. We will cut off the breaths of the terrorists one by one."
The Interior Ministry's color-coded list is divided into five categories, with red as the most wanted, followed by blue, green, orange and gray.
Southeastern provinces like Şırnak, Tunceli, Diyarbakır and Hakkari were once synonymous with acts of terrorism where the PKK concentrated its attacks since its inception in the 1980s.
With no shelter in urban locations, the PKK takes advantage of mountainous territories in Türkiye’s southeast, where its members spend winter in remote caves. Turkish security forces regularly target PKK hideouts in these regions.
Ankara boasts of having suffered no major terrorist attacks on Turkish soil since 2016.
Since Turkish operations have driven its domestic presence to near extinction, the PKK has moved a large chunk of its operations to northern Iraq, including a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil.
Türkiye has, over the past 25 years, operated several dozen military bases in northern Iraq in its war against the PKK and has been conducting airstrikes as part of “Claw” operations since 2022 to demolish terrorist lairs and prevent the formation of a terror corridor along its borders.
Ankara has asked Iraq for more cooperation in combating the PKK. Baghdad labeled the group a banned organization in March and set up two military bases in the northern Zakho region in April.
Ankara plans a new swoop in on the PKK militants this summer and says Iraqi cooperation is paramount to eradicating the group "at its roots."
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 to achieve a so-called Kurdish self-rule in southeastern regions and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, as well as the United States and the European Union.
Turkish forces have eliminated at least 1,151 PKK terrorists since Jan. 1 this year, including 521 in Iraq and 630 others in Syria’s north.
