ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s armed forces have killed 26 Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria in the week after jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan’s disarmament call, the defence ministry said on Thursday.
Ocalan last week called on his outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to lay down its arms and dissolve, and the militant group declared an immediate ceasefire on Saturday.
“The Turkish Armed Forces will continue its operations and search-scanning activities in the region for the survival and security of our country,” the defence ministry spokesperson told a weekly press briefing.
“(It) will continue its fight against terrorism with determination and resolve until there is not a single terrorist left,” the spokesperson added.
The spokesperson Zeki Akturk said the PKK militants had been “neutralised” in Iraq and Syria, without specifying where the incidents took place. The ministry’s use of the term “neutralised” commonly means killed.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies, said it was ready to convene a congress, as Ocalan urged, but the necessary security conditions should be established for him to “personally direct and run” it.
The Syrian Kurdish YPG, the spearhead of the key U.S. ally against Islamic State in Syria that Ankara views as an extension of the PKK, has said Ocalan’s message did not apply to them.
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday Turkey would continue operations against the PKK if the group’s process of disarmament is stalled or promises are not kept.
Erdogan’s ruling AK Party spokesman Omer Celik said all Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria, including the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), must lay down their weapons.
(Reporting by Ece Toksabay, Writing by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Daren Butler, Alexandra Hudson)
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