Turkey: Operations to end soon

ANKARA

Turkey’s minister of interior affairs, Efkan Ala, said on Tuesday that the counter-terrorism operations in Cizre district will be completed in couple of days, and the Sur district operations may take one or two more weeks.

Following a meeting with eastern and southeastern deputies at the Justice and Development (AK) Party headquarters, Efkan Ala said that new police stations would be built in the southeast.

“We will build and we are building the police stations at those places and gendarmerie stations at other places already,” said Ala. “This is something we have been doing in a while but we review it in another perspective which considers current conditions.”

Ala also said a new unit within the security directorate will be formed in the upcoming days.

Sur district in southeastern Diyarbakir province and Cizre district of the southeastern province of Sirnak are among areas that have been the focus of counter-terror operations and military curfews since early Dec. 2015.

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

Since then, more than 250 members of the security forces have been martyred and thousands of PKK terrorists killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.

ANKARA

Following a meeting with eastern and southeastern deputies at the Justice and Development (AK) Party headquarters, Efkan Ala said that new police stations would be built in the southeast.

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

Since then, more than 250 members of the security forces have been martyred and thousands of PKK terrorists killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.