News / Turkey

High-profile Kurdish PKK terrorist 'neutralized' in southeastern Turkey

Thursday, 04 October 2018 2:49 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 04 October 2018 6:48 PM ]

Slain PKK terrorist Mehmet Sait Sürer, better known by the nom de guerre Cuma Mardin (Photo by Gazete Kritik newspaper)

Turkish security forces have "neutralized" a high-ranking member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group during a counter-terrorism operation in the country’s southeastern province of Mardin.

Turkey’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that Mehmet Sait Sürer, better known by the nom de guerre Cuma Mardin, was neutralized during an airstrike against a militant position in the Nusaybin district of the province.

The statement added that the militant had a $647,360 bounty on his head, and was in the red category of the ministry's wanted terrorists.

The Turkish military generally uses the term "neutralize" to signify that the militants were killed, captured or surrendered.

The report came on the same day that seven Turkish soldiers were killed and two others wounded in a PKK bomb attack in Turkey’s southeastern province of Batman.

The Batman Governor's Office said in a statement that four soldiers were killed on the spot, while five others sustained injuries as the explosion struck in a rural area of Gercus district.

A doctor, who asked not to be named, said three soldiers later succumbed to their wounds at the Batman Region State Hospital.

PressTV-14 Kurdish PKK militants 'neutralized' in N Iraq

At least 14 Kurdish PKK militants have been “neutralized” in Turkish airstrikes in Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

PKK militants regularly clash with Turkish forces in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of Turkey attached to northern Iraq.

Turkey, along with the European Union and the United States, has declared the PKK a terrorist group and banned it. The militant group has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against PKK positions in the country as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria.

More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group.

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