ANKARA (Dispatches) – Turkish security forces have killed a senior member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group during an anti-terrorism operation in the country’s southeastern province of Sirnak.
Turkey’s Interior Minister, in a statement released on Tuesday, announced that Hülya Ero?lu, better known by the nom de guerre Gülbahar, was killed during an offensive in the Bestler-Dereler district of the province, situated some 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) east of the capital Ankara.
The statement added that she was a member of the so-called PKK executive committee, and on the red category of the terror blacklist.
The ministry further noted that 30 other PKK terrorists were also been killed in the counter-terrorism operation, which had been going on since November 2.
Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region. The Turkish military has also been conducting offensives against the positions of the group in northern Iraq.
The operations began in the wake of a deadly bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. More than 30 people died in the attack, which the Turkish government blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.
After the bombing, the PKK militants, who accused the government in Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting the Turkish military operations.