Ankara, Jan 12 (EFE).- Amid clashes with Kurdish PKK guerrillas, five Turkish soldiers were killed and eight others wounded in an attack on a military base in northern Iraq, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said Friday.<\/p>
“Five of our brave comrades were martyred in a clash with terrorists attempting to infiltrate our base in the Operation Claw-Lock zone,” the ministry said in an initial statement, adding that eight soldiers were also injured, three of them critically.<\/p>
The statement also noted that 12 guerrilla members were “neutralized” in the attack by “militants” in northern Iraq.<\/p>
The official statement refers to guerrillas of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which took up arms in 1983 to fight for self-determination for Kurds living in southeastern Turkey.<\/p>
The deaths of Turkish soldiers are followed by events on Dec. 23, where 12 Turkish soldiers and at least 16 PKK members died during clashes that lasted two days.<\/p>
Initially, the PKK and Turkish Armed Forces focused the conflict in southeastern Turkey, where the country’s Kurdish population is concentrated. However, the Kurdish guerrillas have also established bases in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq.<\/p>
Since 2019, Turkey has permanently maintained troops in an approximately 30-kilometer-wide strip of mountainous terrain south of the Turkish border in Iraq, where the PKK has caves, tunnel systems, ammunition depots, and rearguard posts.<\/p>
In recent years, the conflict between Turkish forces and the PKK has mainly taken place in northern Iraq, with minimal intervention on Turkish territory.EFE<\/p>
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