Kurdistan Workers' Party

Turkey condemned the meeting of French President Emmanuel Macron with members of "the so-called 'Syrian Democratic Council,' which is under the control of the PYD/YPG, the Syrian extension of the terrorist organization PKK," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç said in a written statement on July 20.

Five more PKK terrorists surrendered in Turkey as result of persuasion efforts by security forces, the Interior Ministry announced on July 17. 

The ministry said the terrorists surrendered after fleeing the terror group thanks to persuasion efforts by police and gendarmerie teams, bringing the number of terrorists who have surrendered through persuasion this year alone to 107.

Turkey July 17 remembered a Turkish diplomat killed in a 2019 terrorist attack in Erbil, northern Iraq.

"We commemorate with respect our martyr Osman Köse, official of the Consulate General in Erbil, assassinated in a heinous attack by the terrorist organization PKK on July 17, 2019," the Foreign Ministry wrote on Twitter.

Former Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu has returned to the Turkish Parliament following a Constitutional Court verdict which said his rights were violated when convicted and stripped of his immunity.

Turkey's Defense Minister Hulusi Akar discussed with his Italian counterpart on July 13, bilateral and regional security issues and the latest developments in Afghanistan, Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean, according to the Turkish National Defense Ministry.

The meeting between Akar and Lorenzo Guerini in Istanbul was constructive and positive, it said.

At least two PKK terrorists were "neutralized" in northern Iraq, the Turkish National Defense Ministry said on July 11. 

The terrorists were "neutralized" in an operation by the Turkish Armed Forces in the Gara region, the ministry said on Twitter.

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

Four YPG/PKK terror suspects were detained in different parts of Turkey on July 9. 

Three suspects, all of them Syrian nationals who had entered Turkey illegally, were nabbed in simultaneous operations in the southern Osmaniye, Şanlıurfa, and Mersin provinces, according to a statement by the Osmaniye security directorate.

Turkey's president on July 9 slammed the PKK terror group and People's Democratic Party (HDP), called them "exploiters" and the "worst thing to befall to region and Kurdish people in 1,000 years."

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on July 9 said the mothers in a sit-in protest, who accuse one of Turkey's opposition party of being a part of the recruitment of their children by the illegal PKK group, have broken down the fear against the terror group.

Turkey's president vowed on July 8 to eliminate the nation's dependence on foreign-made defense products.

"We will continue to increase our investments in the defense industry until we completely free our country from foreign dependence," President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said at the opening ceremony of a maintenance hangar for A400M strategic airlifters in the capital Ankara.