Turkey says PKK attack kills Turkish soldier in northern Iraq

Ezgi Akin

Aug 7, 2024

This picture taken on April 25, 2023, shows a shrapnel-pocked walled in the village of Hiror near the Turkish border in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. — This picture taken on April 25, 2023, shows a shrapnel-pocked walled in the village of Hiror near the Turkish border in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, where firefights occur between the Turkish army and fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). — SAFIN HAMID/AFP via Getty Images

ANKARA — One Turkish soldier was killed in northern Iraq on Wednesday in an attack by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, Turkey's Defense Ministry said.

The ministry said the soldier was killed by “harassment fire” by the militants in a region where Turkey has engaged in Operation Claw-Lock against the PKK since 2019.

Headquartered in northern Iraq, the PKK has been waging an armed campaign against Turkey for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984 and is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, Washington and a majority of European capitals.

The attack comes at a time when Turkey has intensified its offensive against the militant group in an effort to clear it from the Iraq-Turkey border areas and establish up to a 40-kilometer-deep (24 miles) security zone in northern Iraq.