Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has eliminated two PKK terrorists in a precision strike in the northern Iraqi region of Hakurk, security sources said Friday.
The two terrorists, Zehra Sebat, code-named “Rojda Azad,” and Serhat Erdoğan, code-named “Çirav Cudi,” were planning to attack Turkish security forces in the region, sources said.
MIT stepped up its operations against terrorist groups abroad in recent years. Counterterrorism operations largely target the PKK and its affiliates. They concentrate on northern parts of Türkiye’s neighbors Syria and Iraq, where the terrorist group exploited a security vacuum to operate freely.
Turkish intelligence generally carries out precision airstrikes, employing drones, but occasionally, they bring in terrorism suspects alive.
Separately, the Turkish security forces eliminated nine PKK terrorists in the northern Iraqi region where Operation Claw-Lock was conducted, the Defense Ministry said Friday.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 in a terror campaign that has killed more than 40,000 people. Its jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan is expected soon to make what Türkiye’s PKK-affiliated party has described as a “historic call for a solution to the Kurdish issue.”
The Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) refers to the PKK’s campaign of violence as simply a fight for the rights of the Kurdish people, which is being exploited by the PKK. The government, which endorsed the initiative, refuses to term it as such and has repeatedly urged people of Kurdish descent to distance themselves from the propaganda of the terrorist group.
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, an ally of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), launched what has been dubbed the terror-free initiative last year.
In a shocking move for the hardline politician who has traditionally opposed any concessions to the PKK, Bahçeli said Öcalan should benefit from a conditional, temporary release if he made a speech at the parliamentary group meeting of the DEM Party and openly called for the PKK to lay down arms and cease any terrorist activity.
“Reinforcing Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood is a historic responsibility and is a matter of importance and emergency for all peoples,” Öcalan said in his statements quoted by the DEM Party after two meetings.
The PKK terrorist group claims to fight for Kurdish self-rule and brainwashes the Kurdish population concentrated in southeastern Türkiye to draw recruits. Turkish officials are opposed to the conflation of the Kurdish community and the PKK, arguing the definition implies Kurds are a problem for Türkiye and abets the PKK’s terrorist agenda.
The last attempt at peace failed in 2015 when the PKK resumed attacks during negotiations.
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