Security forces destroyed some 37 hideouts used by PKK terrorists as logistics bases for their attacks in southeastern Türkiye, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced Friday.
Operation “Gürz-25” targeted caves and shelters PKK terrorists use for its attacks across the countryside of 11 provinces, including Şırnak, Bitlis, Hatay and Hakkari, Yerlikaya said on X.
The air-backed operation was conducted jointly by gendarmerie special forces, commandoes and rangers.
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.
Security forces seized 661 kilograms (1,457.26 pounds) of explosives, four M79 anti-tank munitions, three RPG-7 rocket launchers, three machine guns, four Dragunov sniper rifles, 12 AK-47 rifles, 105 hand grenades, 78 rocket launcher munitions, 25 cannons, mortars and grenade launcher munitions, as well as 14,067 munitions.
Türkiye continues to mount operations against terrorists in both cities and rural regions around the clock, Yerlikaya said.
Turkish security forces regularly conduct counterterrorism operations in the eastern and southeastern provinces of Türkiye, where the PKK has attempted to establish a stronghold in its four-decade campaign of terror.
Strikes on the terrorist group have only intensified in the past week after a PKK attack on the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in Ankara that killed five and injured 22 people last Wednesday.
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.
PKK violence was initially raging in rural regions of southeastern Türkiye, but the terrorists have moved a large chunk of operations to northern Iraq since 2019 after successive Turkish operations, but the group still has operatives within the country.
The PKK terrorists have their headquarters in Qandil, which sits roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil, the capital of northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)-administered region.
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.
Until recently, Iraq has said the operations violate its sovereignty, but Ankara says it is protecting its borders where it intends to establish a 30-40 kilometer security corridor.
In August, the neighbors agreed to military cooperation, namely joint training and operation centers, against the terrorists, months after Baghdad declared the PKK a banned organization.
Türkiye, however, wants Iraq to recognize the PKK as a terrorist group fully.
