ANKARA (Sputnik) — A total of 27 militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were killed by the Turkish army in 24 hours of a counter-terrorist operation in the country's southeast, the Turkish General Staff said in a statement Friday.
"Sixteen terrorists were killed in [the Sirnak Province's town of] Cizre and 24 bodies of [militants] killed earlier were found. Five terrorists were destroyed in Sura and six in the Hakkari Province," the statement read.
Turkey's Interior Minister Efkan Ala said Thursday that Turkish security forces had finalized the anti-terrorist operation in the mainly Kurdish town of Cizre.
According to the Turkish General Staff, over 900 Kurdish militants have been killed in counter-terrorism operations since mid-December. Kurdish activists, in turn, argue that most of the dead were civilian victims.
The security situation in Turkey deteriorated in mid-2015, when two Turkish policemen were killed by the PKK, which led Ankara to launch a military campaign against the group.
