Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said at a gendarmerie command meeting on Wednesday that slightly more than 500 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants are left inside Turkey due to large-scale military operations in the southeastern region since 2015, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
“We will make all preparations and use all our capabilities to eliminate these 500 terrorists in 2020,” Soylu said.
In August he claimed that there were less than 600 terrorists inside the country, referring to the PKK.
This year, 111 terrorists were recruited by the PKK, whereas 233 others surrendered to Turkish security forces in 2019, he added.
Soylu said almost 600 terrorists have been convinced by their families to surrender to security forces in the last three years.
Waging a decades-long insurgency in Turkey’s Southeast, the PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.
Turkish Minute