Turkish soldier killed in Kurdistan Region fighting PKK

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Turkish defense ministry announced on Tuesday the killing of one of its soldiers inside the Kurdistan Region in Operation Claw-Lock against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). 

Mustafa Demir was killed on Tuesday during the ongoing military operations, Turkish Minister Hulusi Akar announced in a statement.

This is the third soldier being killed this week as part of the air-and-ground operations, launched in April to target the alleged positions of the Kurdish militants in the mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region.

PKK and Ankara regularly publish exaggerated death tolls of one another. The Kurdistan 24 has not been able to independently verify the figures.

Having been engaged in a fierce conflict, PKK and Turkish have mostly fought their decades-old battles inside the Kurdistan Region, in which the safety and livelihoods of civilians have been endangered.

The Region’s authorities have regularly called on the warring sides to take their bloody fights away from the civilian populated areas.

In one incident on July 20, at least nine Iraqi Arab tourists were killed by artillery shelling. Baghdad blamed Ankara for the attack.