ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least three Turkish soldiers and two suspected Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members were killed during an operation carried out by the Turkish military in the southeastern Sirnak province on Tuesday.
“3 gendarmerie personnel were martyred and 1 security guard was seriously injured in the operation,” the Turkish interior ministry said, adding that the operation “neutralized” three “terrorists” but did not explicitly mention if they are linked to the PKK.
“The terrorists’ affiliation was not specified” but “PKK has been known to be active in the region,” state-owned Anadolu Agency said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, blamed the PKK and offered condolences to the soldiers’ families.
“We will resolutely continue our fight against the separatist terrorist organization PKK and its extensions inside and outside our borders, and we will not stop until the last terrorist is eliminated,” Erdogan said on Twitter.
The PKK is a Kurdish group which has fought for Kurdish rights and waged an armed insurgency against Turkey for decades, and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, who frequently targets the group domestically as well as its alleged offshoots southward in the Kurdistan Region and Syria.
Turkish media and officials use the term “neutralize” to imply surrenders, killings or capturing on the battlefield.
Presidential candidate and leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu extended his condolences to the families of the soldiers killed during the operation.
“May God have mercy on our soldiers who were martyred in the operation in Sirnak, our condolences and patience to their families; I wish a speedy recovery to our injured security guard and soldier,” Kilicdaroglu tweeted.
Kilicdaroglu will face sitting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a runoff on May 28 as he eyes the presidency and looks to oust Erdogan after two decades in power. However, the candidate has faced criticism from Turkish nationalists for seeking to partner with the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), whose alliance won over ten percent of the parliamentary vote in the first round and who nationalists accuse to be the political front for the PKK – an accusation that the HDP vehemently denies.
The HDP acted as an intermediary during the peace process between the Turkish state and the PKK between 2013 and 2015, marking short years of hope that the decades-long conflict that left tens of thousands dead might finally come to an end. The talks collapsed in 2015.
In 2021, Turkey’s chief prosecutor filed a lawsuit in the Constitutional Court seeking the dissolution of the HDP for alleged links to the PKK. The case is ongoing.
In November, Turkey launched a domestic operation targeting PKK members in Sirnak - an extension of an earlier campaign across several provinces seeking to remove the PKK from the countryside.
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