Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Saturday that Turkey’s military operation against Kurdish PKK fighters in northern Iraq and Syria is nearing its end.
Turkey initiated Operation Claw-Lock in April 2022 to secure its border with northern Iraq, accusing Kurdish separatists of launching attacks on Turkish territory from there.
“We will soon complete the lockdown of the operation area in northern Iraq,” Erdogan stated, adding that Kurdish forces are now “incapable of acting inside our borders.” He further noted that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) had been “completely trapped” in Iraq and Syria, telling military academy graduates that Turkish forces were “all over them.”
Erdogan also mentioned the ongoing efforts to “complete the security belt along our southern border with Syria.” Since 2016, Turkey has conducted multiple ground operations to remove Kurdish forces from northern Syria’s border areas.
The PKK, designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, began its insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984. The conflict has resulted in over 40,000 deaths.
