ISTANBUL: Turkiye said on Tuesday it had killed 13 Kurdish militants in northern Syria and two in Iraq, a sign that Ankara has pressed on with its campaign against fighters, some with possible links to US allies, since Donald Trump took office in the White House last week.

The Turkish defence ministry said the Kurdish fighters it had “neutralised” in Syria belonged to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkiye considers the PKK and YPG to be identical; the United States considers them separate groups, having banned the PKK as terrorists but recruited the YPG as its main allies in Syria.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2025