Turkey: Over 1,400 militants “neutralized” in North of Iraq and Syria in 2020

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – On Monday, Turkish Defense Minister, Hulusi Akar, announced that security forces had “neutralized” what he said were 1,458 "terrorists" of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq and Syria, since the beginning of 2020.

"The neutralization of these terrorists" came within the framework of counter-terrorism operations in northern Syria and Iraq, where the PKK is active, the Turkish Defense Minister said in statements which he made during a tour with army leaders, in which he inspected military headquarters in Kayseri province, in central Turkey, according to a report from the government-run Anadolu News Agency.

"Operations will continue until the last terrorist in the area is eliminated," Anadolu quoted Akar as saying.

The PKK is engaged in a decades-long insurgency against Turkey over Kurdish rights and self-rule in a conflict that has resulted in the death of over 40,000 people on both sides.

On May 21, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), in the last five months, 77 percent of armed clashes and military operations involving Turkey and the PKK have taken place inside the Kurdistan Region, in northern Iraq, while only 23 percent of such incidents have occurred inside Turkey.

ACLED is a disaggregated data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping project, and it collects the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and modalities of all reported political violence and protests across the globe. Thus, according to its data, the Kurdistan Region has witnessed the vast majority of the armed clashes and airstrikes involving Turkey and the PKK.

In the past decade, Turkey has regularly shelled areas inside the Kurdistan Region. Since last year, Turkey’s military operations have intensified in frequency, and they have widened in terms of the territory that is affected. In some areas, Turkish forces have moved as far as 30 kilometers deep across the border and inside the territory of the autonomous region.

Due to the Turkish military activity, particularly Turkish airstrikes, in recent months, approximately 400 villages have been evacuated. The continued bombardment has destroyed homes, damaged farms, and sometimes even killed people, making life in those areas intolerable for its residents.

Agriculture, trade, and the local environment continue to suffer from the clashes. Residents and officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have repeatedly requested that the PKK and the Turkish government take their fight elsewhere and not subject innocent civilians to the very negative consequences of their conflict.

Editing by Laurie Mylroie