Turkiye’s airstrikes kill 14 PKK members in Kurdistan Region
Shafaq News/ On Wednesday, theTurkish Ministry of Defense announced that its airstrikes on strongholds of theKurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Kurdistan Region (KRI) neutralized 14members of the party opposing the Ankara regime.
The Turkish authorities use the term"neutralized" to imply that the person in interest has been killed orcaptured.
The ministry stated, “The airstrikesconducted by the Turkish Air Force from October 9 to 11 resulted, according topreliminary information, in the neutralization of 9 party members in the Karaarea and 5 others in the Hakurk region in northern Iraq.”
“Our Turkish Armed Forces continueto strike the terrorist organization PKK in its lairs,” it added.
On Tuesday, the ministry announced thattwo PKK members were killed in the Hakurk region.
Notably, Turkiye conducts operationsto combat the PKK, which targets its forces and citizens and operates inseveral countries in the region, including Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
The PKK has established a strongholdin the Qandil Mountains in the KRI and is active in various cities, regions,and valleys, launching attacks on Turkish territory from there.
The conflict between Turkiye and thePKK has its origins in the early 1980s when the PKK began its armed strugglefor an independent Kurdish state within Turkiye. Throughout the 1980s and1990s, this conflict escalated into a full-scale insurgency, with the PKKemploying guerrilla tactics and the Turkish military responding with majoroperations targeting PKK strongholds, both within Turkiye and across the borderin northern Iraq.
In recent developments, on August15, following two days of high-level security discussions in Ankara, Turkiyeand Iraq signed an agreement aimed at strengthening military, security, andcounter-terrorism cooperation, explicitly focused on combating the PKK. Thisaccord includes the establishment of joint coordination and training centers inBaghdad and the Bashiqa region in northern Iraq.
Turkiye's Foreign Minister HakanFidan, speaking alongside Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein after the talks,hailed the agreement as having "historical importance." Fuad Husseinsimilarly emphasized that the deal was "the first of its kind in thehistory of Iraq and Turkiye," particularly in the areas of defense andsecurity.
