Kemal Ekinci, a Turkish sergeant who was kidnapped by PKK terrorists 10 years ago and remained captive for 19 months in southern Şırnak province, said that the PKK is trying to defame the Turkish military by passing the blame for killing 13 civilians in Gara last month to Turkish military operations.

On Feb. 13, 2021, PKK terrorists executed 13 abducted Turkish citizens in a cave in northern Iraq's Gara region during a Turkish counterterrorism operation. In the operation, 48 terrorists were killed, and two were captured alive. After the incident, the PKK said that it was the bombardment of Turkish jets that caused the deaths of the abducted citizens.

"(They said) we will kill you. And then we will say the government sent jets and killed you," Ekinci was told by PKK terrorists during his captivity.

The sergeant said that the terrorists also tried to force them to speak out against the government, but they refused.

He added that he was exposed to psychological torture during captivity in the cave where he was held. "They were calling our killed soldiers ‘rotten apples.’ When they wanted to kill us, they said that we would be executed if security forces reached a certain place," he said.

The PKK managed to establish a foothold in Iraq, particularly in the Sinjar region, in mid-2014 on the pretext of protecting the local Yazidi community from Daesh terrorists. Since then, the PKK has reportedly established a new command base in Sinjar to carry out logistic activities.