Turkish security forces have eliminated 29 PKK/YPG terrorists in northern Syria near the Turkish border, the Defense Ministry announced Friday.
The terrorists were plotting an attack, the ministry said in a post on X.
"Wherever they may be, our fight against terrorist groups will continue until the last is eliminated," the ministry vowed.
The PKK and its U.S.-backed Syrian offshoot YPG have sought to exploit the situation in post-Assad Syria to accelerate efforts to establish a "terrorist corridor" along the border with Türkiye.
The PKK/YPG terrorist group and Daesh threaten Türkiye’s borders and the territorial integrity of Syria and remain legitimate targets for Türkiye, the Defense Ministry said Thursday amid ongoing counterterrorism operations at home and across the Turkish border in Syria and Iraq.
Since last month’s fall of Bashar Assad, Türkiye has said repeatedly it was time for the PKK/YPG to disband. Ankara considers the group, which the U.S. calls its ally in the anti-Daesh coalition, as an extension of the PKK terrorist organization.
The PKK violence, which has spread beyond Türkiye's borders into Iraq and Syria, has killed tens of thousands of people.
Ankara has mounted multiple operations against the PKK/YPG in Syria since 2016. In Iraq, it maintains dozens of military bases and its airstrikes regularly target terrorist hideouts.
Türkiye has said the new Syrian administration must be given an opportunity to address the YPG presence but also threatened to mount a new cross-border operation against the PKK/YPG terrorists based in northeast Syria if its demands are not met.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has earlier called the YPG the biggest problem in Syria and warned the terrorist group would not be able to escape its inevitable end unless it lays down its arms. Speaking to reporters at a weekly press briefing in the capital Ankara on Thursday, the Defense Ministry's press representative, Rear Adm. Zeki Aktürk, announced a total of 3,226 terrorists had been eliminated in counterterrorism operations in northern Iraq and Syria since Jan. 1, 2024, including a total of 62 in the past week alone.
Türkiye, in 2022, launched Operation Claw-Lock to target the terrorist group's hideouts in northern Iraq's Metina, Zap and Avasin-Basyan regions.
