Turkey’s Interior Ministry announced on Monday that a total of 61 terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were “rendered ineffective,”with 12 captured and 49 killed in 254 military operations conducted between Nov.28-Dec.5.
The ministry also said 220 people were detained in the same period on accusations of aiding and abetting a terror organization, while many shelters and homemade explosives used by the PKK were also destroyed.
Turkish authorities had conducted direct talks with jailed PKK chief Abdullah Öcalan for several years until a truce in effect collapsed in the summer of 2015. Since then, there have been heavy clashes between the PKK and Turkish security forces.
More than 40,000 people, including 5,500 security force members, have been killed in four decades of fighting between the Turkish state and the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU.
According to the ministry’s statement, 38 Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists have also been detained by Turkish police in the past week, and 21 of them have been arrested.
Dozens of people have been killed in terrorist attacks perpetrated by ISIL militants in Turkey since July 2015.
