Turkey has carried out an air operation on PKK targets in northern Iraq’s Qandil, Gara, Hakurk and Zap regions, the defense ministry announced on Friday.

It stated that close to 40 targets consisting of caves, shelters, ammunition depots and so-called headquarters of terrorists were destroyed in the operation.

Determined to eliminate terrorism at its source, Turkey is throttling the terrorist group in northern Iraq. Northern Iraq is known to have many PKK terrorist hideouts and bases from where they carry out attacks on Turkey.

The Turkish military regularly conducts cross-border operations in northern Iraq. Turkey has long stressed that it will not tolerate terrorist threats to its national security and has called on Iraqi officials to take the necessary steps to eliminate the terrorist group. Ankara previously noted that, if the expected steps were not taken, it would not shy from targeting terrorist threats.

Turkey launched Operations Claw-Lightning and Claw-Thunderbolt on April 23 in northern Iraq’s Metina and Avasin-Basyan regions near its borders.