A Turkish soldier was killed in clashes with PKK terrorists in northern Iraq, the Defense Ministry announced Wednesday.

Lt. Ömer Fatih Ayar was severely injured during armed clashes with the PKK in northern Iraq’s Gara region and succumbed to his wounds at the hospital he was taken to, the ministry said.

Defense Minister Yaşar Güler, too, sent his condolences to Ayar’s family.

The PKK, which has massacred over 40,000 people in Türkiye in a four-decadelong terror campaign, is not designated a terrorist organization in Iraq but is banned from launching operations against Türkiye from Iraqi territory.

Since Turkish operations have driven its domestic presence to near extinction, the PKK has moved a large chunk of its operations to northern Iraq.

Ankara maintains dozens of military bases there, and it regularly launches operations against the PKK, which uses a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil.

The PKK also occupies Sinjar, Makhmour and has a foothold in Sulaymaniyah, which sits in northern Iraq’s semiautonomous north controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), where the central Iraqi government has little influence.

Since the start of the year, Ankara has hinted at a final summer offensive against the PKK in both northern Iraq and Syria, where the PKK operates with its local offshoot, the YPG.

Güler recently said that Operation Claw-Lock, launched in April 2022, would be completed before the winter to sever the ties between Syria and Qandil.

Türkiye aims to wipe out the PKK from its borders and create a 40-kilometer-deep security corridor along the Iraqi and Syrian borders.