Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Saturday that Ankara is close to realizing its goals in its ongoing military operations against Kurdish fighters in neighboring Iraq and northern Syria.
Erdoğan’s comments come a day after the Turkish Defense Ministry announced that one soldier was killed and another wounded in northern Iraq after an improvised explosive device was detonated. The ministry blamed the “separatist group” for the incident.
Turkey often uses the term to refer to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey, the US and the EU also classify the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
“We will complete the closure of the area where the Claw-Lock operation took place in northern Iraq very soon,” Erdoğan told graduates of the military academy in Istanbul.
Erdoğan was referring to the offensive Turkey launched in April 2022, which he said was aimed at repelling PKK attacks from northern Iraq.
Turkey has previously agreed with the government in Baghdad to cooperate in tackling PKK fighters in Iraq, where the group is based.
According to Erdoğan, the PKK is now “completely stuck” in both Iraq and Syria.
“We will fill in the missing points of the security belt along our southern border with Syria,” he added.
Turkey has been conducting ground offensives in northern Syria since 2016 to push Kurdish militias from the border. The country controls large parts of the area.
Erdoğan recently hinted at plans for rapprochement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Turkish president is under increasing domestic pressure over the more than 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.
Ankara is “determined not to allow any construction that poses a threat to our country along the borders of Iraq and Syria,” Erdoğan added.
