ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish defence ministry announced on Friday the death of three soldiers during clashes with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Duhok province, Kurdistan Region.
The ministry said in a statement late Friday that the three soldiers, including a lieutenant, were killed by the PKK as part of Ankara’s fresh military operation, dubbed Operation Claw-Lock. This has raised Turkish soldiers' official death toll to five since the campaign began on Monday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed on Friday that 45 PKK fighters have been "neutralised" in the framework of his country’s latest offensive. Turkish officials use the term “neutralise” to imply surrenders, killings or capturing.
The new operation targets PKK hideouts in the mountainous areas of Metina, Zap, Avashin and Basyan in Duhok province.
The PKK, which usually announces its casualties late, said on Friday that one of its fighters was killed in Duhok on Monday without clarifying how. The group has claimed the death of 127 Turkish soldiers in Duhok since Monday.
Both sides often release exaggerated death tolls of the other side.
Operation Claw-Lock is the fourth stage of Ankara’s Claw operations against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region, with the first stage starting in 2019.
Murat Karayilan, a top PKK commander, told his party’s media on Friday that the latest attacks are not an operation but a “major war''.”
“Airdropping operations were conducted to launch a full-scale invasion attack. This is not an operation, but a major war,” he said.
Erdogan has said that the anti-PKK operations will continue, claiming that soon there will be no place called Qandil, a mountainous area in the Kurdistan Region where the PKK headquarters is located.
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