ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey has hit more than 70 sites allegedly linked to Kurdish groups in Syria and northern Iraq during airstrikes launched this week in retaliation for the deaths of 12 Turkish soldiers in Iraq, the defense minister said Wednesday.
At least 59 Kurdish militants were killed in the strikes as well as in land clashes, Yasar Guler said in a video message to top military officials which was posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“Our pain is great, but our determination is complete,” Guler said. “We avenged (the deaths) of our precious children and we will continue to do so.”
There was no immediately statement from Kurdish groups and the 59 deaths could not be independently verified.
On Friday, militants affiliated with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, attempted to infiltrate a Turkish base in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, Turkish officials said. Six Turkish soldiers were killed in the ensuing firefight. The following day, six more Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes with the Kurdish militants.
Turkey responded by launching strikes against sites that officials said were associated with the PKK in Iraq and Syria.
A spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said at least eight civilians were killed in the airstrikes in northeast Syria on Monday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a United Kingdom-based war monitor, said 12 others were wounded.
Turkey insists it takes utmost care to avoid civilian casualties and harm to cultural heritage.
The PKK, which maintains bases in northern Iraq, has led a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is considered a terror organization by Turkey’s Western allies, including the U.S. Tens of thousands of people have died since the start of the conflict in 1984.
Turkey and the U.S. however, disagree on the status of the Syrian Kurdish groups, which have been allied with Washington in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.