Five Turkish soldiers were killed on Tuesday during a military operation in northern Iraq, where Ankara is fighting Turkish Kurdish rebels, according to an updated report from the Turkish Ministry of Defense.
“Five comrades-in-arms fell as martyrs (…) and two of our heroic comrades were injured during a clash that broke out with terrorists in the area of Operation Closed Claw”, said detailed the ministry in a statement, without specifying the exact location of the incident.
According to Turkey’s official Anadolu agency, the soldiers were fired upon by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters in a cave in northern Iraq.
Classified as a terrorist organization by Ankara and its Western allies, the PKK, which has bases and training camps in the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984. This conflict has done more 40,000 dead, including many civilians.
Ankara has launched numerous operations in Turkey, Iraq and northern Syria against Kurdish rebels who are members or linked to the PKK.
The latest, dubbed “Claw Closed”, began in April in northern Iraq.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Monday the forthcoming launch of a new Turkish military operation in northern Syria aimed at providing Ankara with a 30 kilometer wide “security zone” on its border.
Ankara has since 2016 carried out three offensives in northern Syria against the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia considered by Ankara to be an offshoot of the PKK but which was supported by the United States in particular, to counter the jihadists. of the Islamic State group.
Turkey is in favor of the establishment of “safe areas” in particular to keep Kurdish militias away from its border and to settle some of the 3.7 million Syrian refugees currently living in Turkey.
