The Interior Ministry announced yesterday that a total of 53 terrorists were killed during counterterrorism operations across Turkey over the past week.

Security forces carried out 1,950 counterterrorism raids across Turkey from July 9 to July 16, the ministry said in a written statement.

Among the killed terrorists, one of them was in the red category and one in the grey category. Wanted terrorists are categorized by different color groups - red, blue, green, orange and gray - depending on the level of threat they pose for the country's national security.

Turkish security forces killed Mehmet Yakışır, a senior member of the PKK and the terrorist group's senior member in the Black Sea region, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced on Sunday.

Yakışır was accused of killing of 15-year-old Eren Bülbül last August in Maçka in the Black Sea province of Trabzon. Yakışır was in the red category of Turkey's wanted terrorists list.

Formed in 1978, the PKK terrorist group has fought a long separatist battle with the Turkish state. Its terror campaign has caused the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women and children. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.