Türkiye will not, under any circumstances or for any reason, allow the establishment of a "terroristan" along its southern borders, a statement released after a crucial security meeting chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Saturday.
Türkiye battles the PKK terrorist group in northern Iraq and its Syrian affiliate the YPG in northern Syria, which constitutes a serious security threat to the country.
The meeting, which took place at the Dolmabahçe office in Istanbul, focused on steps to be taken against PKK terrorists in the aftermath of a brutal terrorist attack that martyred nine Turkish soldiers in Operation Claw-Lock region.
It highlighted that Türkiye will continue to carry out counterterrorism operations in northern Iraq and Syria until the last terrorist is eliminated.
"Operations following the treacherous attack neutralized a total of 45 terrorists, 36 in northern Iraq and nine in northern Syria," the statement said.
Turkish authorities use the term "neutralize" to imply the terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler, Chief of Staff Gen. Metin Gürak and the head of the National Intelligence Agency Ibrahim Kalın attended the meeting.
Minister Yerlikaya announced that Turkish security forces detained at least 113 PKK-linked suspects in raids across 32 Turkish provinces.
Nine Turkish soldiers were killed in a PKK terror attack in northern Iraq on Friday.
PKK terrorists often hide out in northern Iraq to plot cross-border attacks in Türkiye. The group also has a Syrian branch, known as the YPG.
Türkiye launched Operation Claw-Lock in April 2022 to target the PKK terror organization's hideouts in Iraq's northern Metina, Zap and Avasin-Basyan regions near the Turkish border.
The PKK, battered and demoralized by Turkish security forces' successful operations, has been in recent years losing members and failing to attract recruits, according to Turkish officials.
Officials said its numbers in Türkiye have been reduced to hundreds, unlike the period between the 1980s and early 2000s. Still, the terrorist group maintains a sizable presence in northern Iraq's rugged terrain, as well as in northern Syria, close to the Turkish border, where its Syrian branch exploits the instability stemming from the ongoing Syrian civil war.
Authorities say less than 200 PKK terrorists remain in Turkish territories, while others are confined to Iraq and Syria. The southeastern region of Türkiye, plagued with terrorism for decades, regained a sense of normalcy, which is evident in flourishing tourism and other activities in the mountains once used as hideouts by terrorists.
Since 2016, Ankara has been leading counteroffensives against the terrorist groups and striving to establish a 30-kilometer-deep (19-mile-deep) security line, for which Russia and the U.S. committed to providing support in October 2019. The same month, Türkiye launched its Operation Peace Spring against the PKK/YPG and Daesh, another terrorist group, in northern Syria, with Washington promising that the YPG would withdraw from the region.
The U.S. military then evacuated all its bases in the area, prioritizing stationing near oil fields. It, however, maintained its support, namely military training and truckloads of equipment, to the terrorist group under the guise of a joint fight against Daesh. It also conducts regular patrols with the PKK/YPG. Last month, Robert Ford, the last U.S. ambassador to Syria, said the U.S. administration is not ready to give up on the PKK/YPG terrorist group despite Türkiye’s security concerns.