PKK Attack On Turkish Military Base In Northern Iraq Kills 2 Servicemen - Defense Ministry

Two officers of the Turkish Armed Forces were killed in northern Iraq in an attack launched by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on a military facility belonging to Ankara, the Defense Ministry said on Friday

ANKARA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th September, 2020) Two officers of the Turkish Armed Forces were killed in northern Iraq in an attack launched by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on a military facility belonging to Ankara, the Defense Ministry said on Friday.

Turkey has considered the PKK as a terrorist organization and launched in mid-June the anti-Kurdish offensive, dubbed Claw-Tiger. Following this step, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry has twice handed a note of protest to the Turkish ambassador, as Baghdad sees such actions to be violations of the country's sovereignty.

"The soldiers were martyred, and another was injured in an attack by the terrorists to the Operation Claw-Tiger area in northern Iraq on Thursday," the ministry said in a statement, as quoted by the official Anadolu news agency.

The Turkish government has been fighting the PKK, which seeks to establish a Kurdish autonomy in Turkey, since the early 1980s. The PKK and Ankara signed a ceasefire agreement in 2013, but it collapsed just two years later over several terror attacks supposedly committed by PKK militants.

Since many PKK bases are located in Iraq's north, Ankara regularly conducts land and air operations in the area.