PKK’s 30-year plan to reach Mediterranean foiled by Operation Olive Branch

Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch, conducted jointly with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), has thwarted the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) 30 year terror plan. The terrorist organizations plans to reach the Mediterranean through the Amanos Mountains has been stymied. The terrorists martyred many soldiers, police and civilians by infiltrating the Amanos Mountains via Afrin.

As the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) advance as part of Operation Olive Branch and clear Afrin, the terrorists are being cornered. The terrorists who are stuck in the Hatay and Osmaniye countryside, located near Turkey’s southern border, are trapped as they cannot move into Afrin.

Before the civil war broke out in Syria, the PKK infiltrated the Amanos Mountains through Hatay’s Hassa district. In this way, the terrorists martyred many soldiers, police and civilians in attacks in Hatay, Osmaniye, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaraş, Adıyaman and Malatya.

Once Afrin was occupied by the PKK/YPG, the terrorists spent the summer months infiltrating Turkey’s Hatay’s countryside and conducting attacks and the winter in Syria’s Rajo, Sheikh al-Hadid and Bulbul towns.

Intelligence units have discovered that 15 terrorists in the Amanos countryside, who could not return to Rajo because of Operation Olive Branch, sent coded messages to Qandil, saying that they were cornered and asking for help.

Northern Iraq’s Qandil Mountains have been a haven for PKK terrorists over the past few decades. Considered as the main base of the PKK, which control checkpoints and entrances to the mountains, the structuring in the area is used for cover and concealment by terrorists.

Operation Olive Branch was initiated on Jan. 20 in Afrin to establish security and stability, eliminate PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG and Daesh terrorists, and save locals from their oppression and cruelty.

The operation is being carried out under the framework of Turkey’s rights based on international law, UN Security Council resolutions, its self-defense rights under the UN charter, and respect for Syria's territorial integrity.

The military said it is putting the "utmost importance" on not harming any civilians.

Afrin has been a major hideout for the PYD/PKK since July 2012, when the Assad regime in Syria left the city to the terror group without putting up a fight.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. The PKK has been conducting armed violence in the southeastern part of Turkey since 1984. More than 40,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the three-decade long conflict.