Turkey: Military operation in north Iraq, Syria nearly finished

Istanbul, Turkey — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Saturday the imminent end to the Turkish forces' operation against Kurdish PKK fighters in northern Iraq and Syria.  


Turkey launched Operation Claw-Lock in April 2022 to secure its border with northern Iraq, from where it accused Kurdish separatists of launching attacks against Turkish territory. 


"We will very soon complete the lockdown of the area of operation in northern Iraq," the president said, adding that Kurdish forces were now "incapable of acting inside our borders." 


Erdogan said that the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, had been "completely trapped" in Iraq and Syria, telling young military academy graduates that Turkish forces were "all over them." 


"We will complete the missing points of the security belt along our southern border with Syria," he said. 


Since 2016, Ankara has also carried out successive ground operations to expel Kurdish forces from border areas of northern Syria.  


The PKK — designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union — took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.