ANKARA, Dec. 23 Turkish Ministry of National Defense announced military operations in northern Iraq against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), banned in the country, after the death of twelve of its soldiers.
On Saturday night, six Turkish soldiers were killed in northern Iraq as a result of an attack by PKK militants. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking on Saturday in Istanbul, said that Ankara will not tolerate the presence of “terrorist entities” in northern Syria and Iraq.
According to the Turkish Ministry of Defense, six more servicemen were killed and one was wounded in a clash with PKK militants in the area of Operation Claw-Castle. According to preliminary data, 13 terrorists were neutralized during the clash.
«Surprise air operations are being carried out against identified targets,» the Turkish military department reported on the social network X.
The armed conflict with the Kurdistan Workers' Party began in Turkey in 1984 and resumed in 2015. In northern Iraq there are PKK bases, against which the Turkish Armed Forces are conducting air and ground operations. The presence of Turkish troops in the Zlikan camp northeast of Mosul has long been a source of contention between Baghdad and Ankara, which justifies the presence as a need to fight Turkey's outlawed PKK.