ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Turkish military has struck 470 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in Iraq and Syria since the group carried out an attack on a Turkish state-owned defense firm last week, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. Following a cabinet meeting, the Turkish leader said that the Kurdish armed group wanted to send the Turkish government a message through Wednesday’s attack on Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) which killed five people and injured 22 others. Hours after the attack, Turkey responded in time-honored fashion, by bombing border areas in the Kurdistan Region and alleged PKK positions in northeast Syria (Rojava). Erdogan claimed that the Turkish army “neutralized” 213 PKK fighters during their retaliatory strikes against the group’s alleged bases in the Kurdistan Region and Rojava, adding that 470 targets belonging to the group were hit. Ankara uses the phrase to denote adversaries captured, wounded, or killed. "As the Republic of Turkey, we have discarded the messages intended to be given through this vile attack,” he said. PKK claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out by “an autonomous team” which belongs to one of its offshoots, noting that it often conducts “self-sacrificing actions that are warnings and messages against the genocidal practices, massacres and isolation practices of the Turkish state power.” The Kurdish group has accused Ankara of oppressing its significant Kurdish population. Founded in 1978, the PKK initially called for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan but now calls for autonomy. The group is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and Western allies. The 40-year long conflict between PKK and the Turkish state has claimed an estimated 40,000 lives. The latest tensions between the arch-foes emerged amid rumors of fresh attempts aiming for a rapprochement. The lifting of isolation measures on the jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on the same day of the TAI attack and the shocking remarks of a Turkish nationalist leader, who extended an olive branch to Ocalan, have given a glimpse of hope to those who have been struggling to end decades of war. Erdogan claimed last week that the two PKK members who attacked TAI headquarters had entered the country from Syria. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are the dominant force in northeast Syria and have been supported by the US-led international coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS). Ankara considers the SDF to be an offshoot of the PKK. SDF commander Mazloum Abdi denied the “activists” entered Turkey from their areas. “Our forces have nothing to do with these attacks and the attackers did not pass through Syrian territory,” he said in a video message on Saturday. Abdi said the Turkish strikes had killed 15 civilians and two of their members.
