PKK has 11 new generation missiles in northern Iraq: Interior minister

ANKARA

AA photo

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has 11 new generation missiles in northern Iraq, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has stated, saying this is a result of ties between the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), an ally of the West. 

“The PKK holds 11 new generation missiles in the north of Iraq. We know they come from the West,” Soylu said in an April 14 interview on private broadcaster NTV.

“Since the PKK and the PYD are the same thing, the PKK/PYD is using whatever exists in that war environment. It has become a laboratory for them,” he added. 

Turkey considers the PYD, which cooperates with both Russia and the U.S. in Syria in fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as a terror group linked to the PKK, and has long called on the two countries to give up such an alliance. 

Meanwhile, Soylu also said security forces have caught three suspects in a bombing with a tunnel dug under a military vehicle repair facility in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır on April 10 and they were pursuing a fourth suspect. 

Speaking live on NTV, the minister shed tears while responding to a question on the most difficult part of his seven months served in the post so far. 

“I cannot stop myself [from crying] while reading letters from the children of martyrs. They stay near my desk,” he said. 

“They say, ‘Uncle Süleyman, don’t let the blood of my father remain in the ground,’” Soylu said, using a Turkish expression for revenge. 

The military stated on April 14 that Turkish security forces had killed 29 PKK militants over the previous seven days,.

In a regular statement on counter-terrorism operations in eastern and southeastern Turkey, the General Staff said five senior militants were among those killed, while 44 PKK shelters were destroyed.

The statement also detailed the seizure of 63 improvised explosive devices, nine rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 54 rifles, two machine guns and 21 pistols, as well as bomb-making equipment. 

In a separate statement, the military had said five PKK militants were killed early on April 14 in the Çukurca and Şemdinli districts in the southeastern province of Hakkari, which borders Iraq and Iran.      

The militants were attempting to “infiltrate” security posts when they were killed, the statement added.


Soldier, village guard killed in PKK attack in Turkey’s Van


One soldier and one village guard were killed in a PKK attack in the Çatak district of the eastern province of Van on April 14, Doğan News Agency has reported.

PKK militants detonated a hand-made explosive trapped on a culvert in the Çatak-Pervari road during a security check.

One non-commissioned officer and one village guard were killed in the attack.

Security forces conducted an air-supported operation in the region to apprehend the militants responsible for the attack.