Kurdish PKK fighter, Turkish Kurdistan, 2019. Photo: ANF
ANKARA,— Two Turkish soldiers were killed on Monday in Iraqi Kurdistan in an attack blamed on Kurdish militants, the defence ministry said.
The soldiers died after an improvised explosive device (IED) “placed by PKK separatist terrorists exploded as a supply convoy was passing”, the ministry said.
Turkish soldiers have been in Iraqi Kurdistan region, northern Iraq, since May in a ground offensive and bombing campaign against the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).
The Press Office of People’s Defense Forces (HPG), the military wing of the PKK, said in a released a statement on Saturday and published by ANF news agency that 5 Turkish soldier were killed on September 20 in the Kurdish guerrillas operations against the army in Hakkari province in Turkish Kurdistan.
In August 2019, Turkey has launched a third military operation “Claw-3” against Kurdish PKK militants in Iraqi Kurdistan region.
PKK’s leadership and rear bases are located in the remote mountainous Qandil region and other areas of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
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