Turkish warplanes hit 24 PKK targets in southeast

The Turkish army says its fighter jets have hit 24 targets of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the southeastern part of the country.

The military said in a statement released on Wednesday that the airstrikes were carried out late on Tuesday in the province of Hakkari and destroyed targets in the border towns of Yuksekova and Daglica, where major targets were arms emplacements and shelters.

Meanwhile, in a separate development on Tuesday, two Turkish soldiers lost their lives when a bomb exploded after a military vehicle passed by on a road between the towns of Semdinli and Yuksekova, the statement added. Three others suffered injuries.

Earlier in the day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said over 30 PKK militants were killed in a cross-border offensive by the country’s army on September 25.

Turkey has been engaged in one of its biggest security operations in the southern border region in the recent past. The Turkish military has been conducting offensives against alleged positions of the Takfiri Daesh terrorists in northern Syria as well as those of the PKK in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey.

The security operations began in the wake of the deadly July 20 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, an ethnically Kurdish town located close to the Kurdish town of Kobani on the other side of the border in Syria, where over 30 people died. The Turkish government blamed Daesh for the bombing. On July 22, the PKK claimed responsibility for the killing of two Turkish police officers, saying they were cooperating with Daesh.

The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. The conflict has left tens of thousands of people dead.

Erdogan has vowed that the fight with the PKK will continue until “not one terrorist is left.”

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk