ANKARA (Dispatches) – President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that Turkish forces had killed a top Kurdish commander during an offensive in neighboring Iraq.
The Turkish army last month launched a new ground and air offensive against militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Erdogan said the military push had eliminated a “terrorist” named Halef al-Muhammed who used the nom de guerre Sofi Nurettin.
He said Nurettin had served as the PKK’s top military commander in Syria.
Nurettin “was neutralized by the operation carried out in northern Iraq,” Erdogan said in televised remarks.
“He is the most senior official within the ranks of the PKK who has been eliminated,” one Turkish security source said. “He was a member of PKK’s central committee.”
The PKK is listed as a terror group by Ankara and much of the international community.
Turkey has fought a guerilla war with the PKK since 1984, when it first launched its armed campaign to carve out an independent Kurdish state. The group now says it wants greater autonomy for Kurds in Turkey.
The Turkish army regularly conducts cross-border invasions and air raids against PKK bases in northern Iraq.
The issue has angered the Iraqi government that says Ankara violates Baghdad’s sovereignty by launching such attacks.