ANKARA

Eighty PKK terrorists have been killed in Turkish airstrikes targeting the terrorist group’s Metina camp in northern Iraq over the last month-and-a-half, the army said on Friday.

According to a Turkish General Staff statement posted on its website, 80 PKK terrorists, including high-ranking figures, were killed in Turkish airstrikes on the PKK’s Metina camp on April 15 and May 18-23.

Meanwhile, the death toll in ongoing operations in southeastern provinces continues to rise.

With three terrorists killed on Thursday in Mardin's Nusaybin district, the number of terrorists killed in recent operations rose to 440. Some 42 terrorists surrendered to security forces, and nine homemade explosives were also destroyed, bringing the number of destroyed explosives to 1,036, the statement said.

As for ongoing operations in the Sirnak province, the statement said nine terrorists were killed on Thursday, raising the number of deaths to 441. Security forces also seized several explosive devices, machine gun and rocket launcher ammunition caches, Kalashnikov shotgun shells, binoculars and cameras. The number of explosives destroyed edged up to 1,353, it added.

Six buildings were also set on fire by terrorists trying to flee the operation area in both Nusaybin, Mardin and in Sirnak.

During the operations, 17 PKK terrorists were detained in the Diyarbakir, Mus, Antalya, Mersin, Hakkari, and Sanliurfa provinces as well.

The PKK – also listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU – resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015.

Since then, nearly 500 members of the security forces, including troops, police officers, and village guards, have been martyred, and over 4,900 PKK terrorists killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.