Operation to PKK brings surrenders

BİNGÖL – Doğan News Agency

Seven members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) surrendered and one militant was killed during a military operation launched in the Karlıova district of the eastern province of Bingöl Dec. 8.

The militant who was killed during Operation Dawn Time was a regional commander of the PKK, codenamed “Serbest,” who reportedly joined the organization in 1999, according to a written statement issued by the Bingöl governor’s office yesterday. 

Reports also stated that among the captured militants was another senior PKK member codenamed “Azad,” who joined the PKK in 1993 and was the organization’s “Deputy Coordinator for the State of Erzurum.” 

The seven militants, including a 15-year-old boy, were persuaded by security forces to surrender. Serbest, however, responded to the officials’ calls by hurling two handgrenades at them, and he was subsequently killed in the ensuing firefight. 

PKK members are told that militants who surrender are killed by security forces, the captured militants said, and that this was the reason they had been reluctant to surrender, according to the governor’s office statement. But the surrendered militants said many other militants are also considering the same option, according to the statement.