ISTANBUL, Turkey — The Turkish army has launched a new
ground and air offensive against outlawed Kurdish militants in northern Iraq,
officials and local media reported on Saturday.
اضافة اعلان
Turkish media said commando forces landed in the Metina
region from helicopters while warplanes dropped bombs on
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets.
“Heroic commandos of the heroic Turkish Armed Forces are in
northern Iraq,” the defense ministry said in a tweet without specifying how
many soldiers were involved.
Turkish television showed images of paratroopers jumping
from helicopters and camouflaged soldiers firing guns.
In a televised speech, Defense Minister
Hulusi Akar said the
operation began on Friday afternoon and involved commandos who were backed up
by drones and attack helicopters.
The PKK, listed as a terror group by Turkey and much of the
international community, has been using Iraq’s northern mountains as a
springboard in its decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.
The Turkish army regularly conducts cross-border operations
and air raids against PKK bases in northern Iraq.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dubbed this one “Operation
Claw-Lightning.”
Speaking to the operation’s command center by video link,
Erdogan said the offensive was designed “to completely end the presence of the
terror threat ... along our southern borders.”
“There’s no room for the separatist terror group in the
future of Turkey, Iraq, or Syria,” he said in reference to the Kurdish
militants.
“We will keep on fighting until we eradicate these gangs of
murderers, who cause nothing but tears and destruction.”
In February, Turkey launched an operation dubbed “Claw-Eagle
2” against PKK rebels holed up in the northern Iraqi region of Dohuk.
That raid created controversy because it was designed in
part to rescue 12 Turkish soldiers and an Iraqi held captive by the PKK in a
cave.
Turkey accused the PKK of executing the 13 men before they
could be freed, and Erdogan came under attack from opposition parties in
parliament.
The February raid also created problems in Turkey’s
relations with Iran, which now has a strong political and military presence in
Iraq, and which treats Erdogan’s regional campaigns with suspicion.
Iran’s ambassador warned in February that Turkish forces
should not pose a threat or violate Iraqi soil, prompting Ankara and Tehran to
each summon the other’s ambassador.
The Kurdish insurgency against the Turkish state is believed
to have killed tens of thousands of people since its launch in 1984.
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