Eight members of the outlawed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who were allegedly planning an attack were “neutralized” during military operations in Hakkari province, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Thursday.
The Hakkari Governor’s Office announced that the terrorists were neutralized during air operations that are still ongoing in the region.
The Turkish Interior Ministry announced at the end of May that a total of 642 PKK terrorists have been neutralized in 4,786 operations across Turkey over the past five months.
According to the ministry’s statement, Turkish security forces killed 316 PKK members, while 187 of them were detained. In the same period 33 PKK members surrendered to security forces. During the 541 operations in May, security forces detained 222 on charges of aiding and abetting the PKK.
Turkish authorities had conducted direct talks with jailed PKK chief Abdullah Öcalan for several years until a truce in effect collapsed in the summer of 2015. Since then, there have been heavy clashes between the PKK and Turkish security forces.
More than 40,000 people, including 5,500 security force members, have been killed in four decades of fighting between the Turkish state and the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU.