Turkey 'Neutralizes' High-Ranking PKK Member In Iraq - Erdogan

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th June, 2021) The Turkish intelligence has "neutralized" Selman Bozkir, a high-ranking member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), designated a terrorist group by Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.

While the Turkish authorities use the word "neutralize" to mean either killed or taken prisoner, Turkish news outlet Daily Sabah specified that Bozkir was killed.

"Selman Bozkir, known under the code name 'Doctor Huseyin,' a senior leader of the PKK terrorist organization ... was neutralized by heroes of the National Intelligence Organization yesterday [Saturday]," Erdogan said on Twitter.

According to the Anadolu news agency, the Turkish intelligence targeted Bozkir due to him allegedly running a training site disguised as a refugee camp.

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

Turkey occasionally conducts air raids targeting the Kurdish militia in the north of neighboring Iraq. According to reports, one such raid on Saturday killed at least three civilians in a refugee camp in northern Iraq.