“Remember that I mentioned about Qandil and Sinjar in northern Iraq. We have launched operations against there. Fourteen important targets have been hit by 20 of our warplanes,” Erdogan said in a campaign rally in the Central Anatolian province of Nigde, Hurriyet daily reported.
“Our warplanes returned to their bases after they hit [the PKK]. But it’s not over. Our objective is to drain the biggest swamp [of terror]. Qandil will no longer be a threat and source of terror,” he added.
Erdogan referred to Turkey’s military operations in northern Syria’s Afrin and al-Bab against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), while also praising achievements in the field of the defense industry that paved the way to producing locally made drones and armed drones.
“We no longer buy them from America or Israel. Our F-16s hit the targets identified by our drones. We will completely remove terror from the agenda of this country,” he said.
Amid suggestions that the latest military campaign is timed for the government’s political benefit ahead of snap elections on June 24, Erdogan claimed that the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and its presidential candidate Muharrem Ince do “not support the government’s fight against terror.”
“Whatever [CHP leader] Kemal [Kilicdaroglu] and Muharrem say, we will continue our fight. Wherever they are, the terrorists will pay back for the blood of our martyrs they shed. In Afrin alone, [the number of militants killed] exceeded 4,500,” he said.
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