A Turkish soldier was killed Thursday during a military operation against the PKK, the defense ministry announced on Thursday, bringing the number of Turkish soldiers killed in the region to six since Tuesday.
A day earlier, the ministry said more than 100 PKK/YPG terrorists were eliminated as part of Operation Claw-Lock. Ankara has launched a series of operations against PKK terrorists in Iraq and Syria, the latest one in northern Iraq beginning in April, Claw-Lock.
It was preceded by Operations Claw-Tiger and Claw-Eagle, which were launched in 2020 to root out terrorists hiding in northern Iraq and plotting cross-border attacks in Turkiye.
On the other side, Turkey’s ambassador to Iraq said on Wednesday that Ankara’s fight against the terrorist group PKK will help reestablish and strengthen Iraqi sovereignty and security.
Ali Rıza Güney made the comments in a meeting with the governor of the northern Nineveh governorate, Najeem al-Jabouri, in Nineveh's capital Mosul, along with a delegation of representatives from Iraq's Industry Ministry.
Noting that the city of Mosul was severely damaged by the Daesh terrorist group, and the young people there are in dire need of jobs, he said Turkish companies sought to invest in the region in an effort to contribute to employment.
The Turkish diplomat went on to say that Ankara places great importance on peace and safety in neighboring Iraq, and now is a good time to invest since Daesh has been militarily defeated.
However, Daesh is not the only headache Iraq has, according to the Turkish official, who said the PKK terrorist group also poses a major risk to the country's sovereignty and security, as it killed Iraqi soldiers in Mosul's Sinjar district and Peshmerga in the northern Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) area.
"The Republic of Turkey’s fight against the PKK (aims) to reestablish and strengthen Iraqi sovereignty," he said.
