Kurdistan Workers' Party

Turkey has extended its fight against terrorists as the new phase of a domestic counter-terrorism operation has been launched in the country's east, the Interior Ministry said on Jan. 20. 

Turkey and Iraq are planning to establish a new mechanism to provide an exchange of information for the struggle against the PKK, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Jan. 20.

The Turkish defense minister and the chief of general staff paid an official visit to Baghdad on Jan. 18.

Turkey has been completely purged of far-left terror groups' structures outside cities, Turkey's interior minister said on Jan. 15. 

"There are either one or two people or none" in rural areas, Süleyman Soylu told a graduation ceremony for 500 women special forces police officers. "They are also in a hurry to flee to Europe."

Turkey will not bow down to "pressure" by social media companies that see themselves above the laws on individual rights, the country's president asserted on Jan. 14. 
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's remarks came at a media awards ceremony held in the presidential complex in the capital Ankara.

A Turkish penal court approved indictments for 108 defendants on Jan. 7, including former co-chairs of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) as part of a probe into deadly 2014 terror incidents across the nation.

A Turkish penal court on Jan. 7 approved indictments for 108 defendants on Jan. 7, including former co-chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş, as part of a probe into the deadly 2014 Kobane incidents across the nation.

Turkish security forces "neutralized" four YPG/PKK terrorists in northern Syria, the Turkish Defense Ministry said on Dec. 26.

The terrorists were attempting to carry out an attack in the Operation Peace Spring area, the ministry said on Twitter.

Turkish authorities use the word "neutralized" to imply the terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.

President Tayyip Erdogan accused Europe's top rights court of hypocrisy on Wednesday for calling on Turkey to release a jailed Kurdish politician, saying it was defending a "terrorist," a stance rejected by his defenders as a cover to stifle democracy.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Dec. 22 ruled that the arrest of Turkey's opposition politician Selahattin Demirtaş in 2017 for terror charges violated his freedom of expression and right to participate in elections.

The Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) co-leader was being deprived of the rights to liberty, security, and freedom of choice, the ruling said.