ERBIL — Turkey's National Defense Ministry has announced that its forces have destroyed at least 15 targets of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Kurdistan Region.

"Turkish airstrikes on Saturday on PKK terrorist targets in northern Iraq, near the Turkish border, destroyed 15 targets thought to be housing terrorist ringleaders," state media Anadolu Agency reported yesterday, citing remarks from the country's Defense Ministry.

Air operations were carried out in the Hakurk region to eliminate terrorist attacks against Türkiye and security forces from northern Iraq by neutralizing members of the PKK/KCK terror group and other terrorist elements and to ensure border security in line with the self-defense rights arising from Article 51 of the UN Charter.”

The Turkish Ministry of National Defense issued a statement last week, claiming its forces had "neutralized" at least 1,715 PKK members in the Kurdistan Region and neighboring Syria throughout the year.

On Tuesday last week, Turkey's security forces announced they "neutralized" a key logistics operative of the Kurdistan Workers' Party in the Kurdistan Region as the country's crackdown on the group intensifies.

Ankara uses the term "neutralize" to imply actions like killing or surrendering in the context of its military operations against the PKK.

Following a recent suicide attack by the PKK on Turkey's national police headquarters in Ankara, Turkey intensified its airstrikes in the Kurdistan Region and neighboring Syria.

Over the past four decades, Turkey and the PKK have been involved in a prolonged armed conflict, significantly affecting various aspects of life in Kurdistan . The PKK's presence in the Region has led to numerous civilian casualties, the forced displacement of thousands of villages, and the abandonment of many mountain resorts and thousands of acres of valuable agricultural land.