ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish soldiers conducting an operation against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq have found the bodies of 13 kidnapped Turks executed in a cave, Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said. Forty eight PKK militants were killed in the operation, while three Turkish soldiers were killed and three wounded, Akar said in a statement released on Sunday. Turkey launched a military operation against the PKK in northern Iraq’s Gara region on Feb. 10 to secure its border and find citizens who had been kidnapped previously, he said. The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, launched its armed insurgency in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. In the last two years Turkey’s fight against the PKK has increasingly focused on northern Iraq, where the group has its stronghold in the Qandil mountains on the Iranian border.

Source: Egypt Independent February 14, 2021 09:45 UTC