Iran and Turkey are preparing to hold few joint operations against the United States-backed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the Ankara considered it as a terrorist organization, Ankara interior minister Suleyman Soylu has said on Wednesday.
According to Sputnik news reports, the minister was quoted by Anadolu news agency as saying, “Turkey and Iran are preparing joint operations against PKK terrorists.”
According to Soylu, Ankara has been from past effectively fighting against the PKK, whose appearance and activity in southeastern Turkey has been significantly decreased.
Since the early 1980s, the Turkish government has been battling with the PKK, who seeks to establish its autonomy in Ankara. Ankara and the PKK, in 2013, agreed over a ceasefire but has collapsed just two years after a number of terror attacks delivered by the PKK militants.
In addition to it, the Turkish authorities considered the PKK to be the terror outfit and view the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) operating in Syria to be an affiliate of the outlawed group.
Turkish security forces carry out regular anti-PKK raids across the country and conduct airstrikes against the group in northern Iraq. According to the Turkish authorities, over 10,000 PKK members have been neutralized since 2015.