MADRID Nov. 1 () –
The Turkish authorities have claimed to have “neutralized” nearly 200 alleged members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and groups linked to the group in their bombings against Iraq and Syria after the attack perpetrated last week in the Turkish capital. , Ankara, which left five dead.
The spokesman for the Turkish Ministry of Defense, Zeki Akturk, has specified that 198 suspects have been “neutralized” as a result of the operations of the Turkish Armed Forces in Iraq and Syria, within the framework of “determined efforts to eliminate terrorism in its origin”.
Furthermore, he has indicated that so far this year nearly 2,420 “terrorists” have been “neutralized.” Ankara uses this term to refer to suspects who have died, been detained or have surrendered to the authorities, without further specifications in this case about the number of deaths in these operations.
Akturk has specified that after the attack in Ankara, which targeted the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) company, Turkish bombings “successfully destroyed” various targets of the PKK and other groups, including “hideouts”, “warehouses” and “facilities”. used by terrorist organizations,” according to a statement from the Ministry of Defense.
The attack took place hours after the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, received a visit at the Imrali prison, where he transferred his nephew, Omer Ocalan, who would have the capacity to take the situation “from the field of conflict and violence to the legal and political field”, in apparent reference to a possible negotiation process.
In fact, the leader of the Turkish ultranationalist party Nationalist Action Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, an ally of Erdogan, proposed this week that Ocalan – detained in 1999 in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and later imprisoned in Turkey – go before Parliament to proclaim the “dissolution” of the group and even open the door to its release if it took this step, taking advantage of the “right to hope” law.
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