Turkey Eliminates 8 PKK Members In Northern Iraq - Defense Ministry

ANKARA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th February, 2020) Turkey's Air Force has conducted a series of strikes in northern Iraq's region of Hakurk against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), considered to be a terror group by Ankara, killing eight of its members, the Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

"Eight members of PKK terrorist organization, planning an attack against an area with our military bases, have been neutralized in an air operation in the Hakurk region in northern Iraq," the ministry said in a statement.

It added that among the neutralized was sabotage unit officer code-named Harun.

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 allegedly committed by PKK militants.