Two more PKK terrorists surrendered to Turkish security forces, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
The terrorists, who joined the PKK between 2011 and 2014 and operated in Iraq, surrendered after persuasion efforts by Turkish police and the gendarmerie, the ministry said in a statement.
The number of terrorists who have laid down their arms through persuasion efforts in 2022 stands at 72, it added.
In Türkiye, offenders linked to terror groups who surrender are eligible for possible sentence reductions under a repentance law.
A significant number of suspected terrorists have begun to abandon the PKK and surrender, but many terrorists lack the courage to leave the terrorist group out of fear of severe punishment if caught.
According to Turkish officials, in recent years the PKK terrorist group, which has been battered and demoralized by Turkish security forces' successful operations, has been losing members and failing to attract recruits.
Protests by a group of families in front of the pro-PKK Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) headquarters in Diyarbakır demanding the return of their sons and daughters, who were recruited or kidnapped to fight for the terrorist group, have also helped increase the number of people surrendering.
Calls made by the families to their children urging them to return home and surrender, as well as the persuasion efforts by security forces, have been influential.
Meanwhile, the defense ministry announced on Thursday that nine YPG/PKK terrorists that were preparing a terrorist attack were eliminated in northern Syria’s Operation Peace Spring area.
Since 2016, Ankara has launched a trio of successful anti-terror operations across its border in northern Syria to prevent the formation of a terror corridor and enable the peaceful settlement of residents: Euphrates Shield in 2016, Olive Branch in 2018 and Peace Spring in 2019.
