SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Four Turkish soldiers were killed in two separate incidents in the Kurdistan Region where they are battling the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the defense ministry said on Monday.
Three soldiers died and two others were injured when an improvised explosive device went off in an area where Turkish forces have been conducting an operation against PKK fighters, the ministry said.
Another soldier was killed and one wounded in a shootout with Kurdish fighters near a Turkish military base, it further said.
Turkey continues its cross-border operation in the Kurdistan Region’s province of Duhok.
On Friday, a Turkish airstrike killed a 50-year-old man in Disheshe village in Kani Mase sub-district, northeast of Duhok.
Turkish troops have maintained a network of bases in Iraq since the mid-1990s under security agreements struck with Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The PKK has waged a rebellion in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey since 1984 that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.
The PKK’s pan-Kurdish agenda – for a homeland straddling parts of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran – has often put it at odds with the Kurdistan Region, which has sought to maintain good relations with Ankara.
*This story was updated at 01:47 p.m. EBL time
