(Istanbul) Turkey carried out airstrikes on Saturday against “terrorist targets” in northern Iraq and Syria after the deaths of nine of its soldiers, the Turkish Defense Ministry announced.
Nine Turkish soldiers were killed and four others injured in an attack carried out Friday against a Turkish military base in northern Iraq, the same ministry said early Saturday, revising upwards a previous toll of 6 deaths.
“In accordance with our rights to self-defense […]air operations were carried out against terrorist targets in northern Iraq in the regions of Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil, and in northern Syria,” the Turkish Defense Ministry reported in a statement .
The Turkish army said on Saturday evening that it had targeted 54 “targets”, including caves, shelters, weapons depots and oil installations used by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units ( YPG), two Kurdish armed groups considered terrorist by Turkey.
Ankara’s army regularly targets PKK fighters in northern Iraq, in autonomous Kurdistan or in the mountainous Sinjar region, and Turkish soldiers are regularly killed there.
In reaction to this heavy attack against Turkish forces, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan convened an emergency security meeting in Istanbul on Saturday in the presence of his ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defense and Interior, the head of general staff and the head of the intelligence services.
“Turkey will not allow a terrorist state to form on its southern borders,” the Turkish presidency said in a statement following this meeting.
113 people suspected of links with the PKK – which the Turkish army has been fighting since 1984 – were also arrested on Saturday in 32 of the 81 Turkish provinces, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on the social network X.
In this context, the ruling AKP party and the main opposition party, the CHP, have decided to postpone the presentation planned this weekend of some of their candidates for the municipal elections on March 31.