Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has busted a so-called intelligence cell of the PKK terrorist group that was operating in Istanbul, security sources announced Thursday.
Two PKK members, Sadık Topaloğlu, code-named "Halil," and Mehmet Savaş were the ringleaders of the intelligence cell and operated under instructions from PKK leaders, sources informed.
Topaloğlu illegally crossed over to northern Iraq’s Qandil region where the PKK has a stronghold and received intelligence training there. During this period, he frequently met with Cemil Bayık, one of the PKK’s ringleaders, code-named "Cuma".
Topaloğlu and Savaş were captured in a joint operation by MIT and Istanbul police. Both have since been arrested and jailed on charges of being a member of a terrorist organization.
Moreover, MIT found that Topaloğlu was in contact with his older brother Osman Topaloğlu, one of the founders of the NLP Strategic Policies Studies Center which was controlled by PKK’s so-called press committee.
Topaloğlu was assigned to Türkiye by another PKK ringleader, Mustafa Karasu, where he gathered intelligence for the group under the pretext of "journalism." He oversaw financial affairs with Savaş on behalf of the terrorist group and supplied materials for PKK members in northern Syria through a shell company he set up in Türkiye.
The two suspects were ordered to incite chaos in Türkiye through propaganda, street marches and official press releases as part of foreign influence activities.
Operations are part of efforts to eliminate the PKK's presence within Turkish borders, in tandem with Turkish airstrikes in Syria and Iraq against the terrorist group's members holed up with Türkiye's neighbors close to its border. PKK terrorists often hide in northern Iraq to plot cross-border attacks in Türkiye. The YPG is its Syrian offshoot that has occupied the country’s northern regions since 2015.
Türkiye has, over the past 25 years, operated several dozen military bases in northern Iraq in its war against the PKK and has been conducting airstrikes as part of "Claw" operations since 2022 to demolish terrorist lairs and prevent the formation of a terror corridor along its borders.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 to achieve a so-called Kurdish self-rule in southeastern regions and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, as well as the United States and the European Union.