ANKARA (Sputnik) — He added that during the same period, the Turkish authorities lost 355 people, including 215 soldiers and 133 police officers.
"Since July 2015 until now… 5,359 [PKK] terrorists have been killed, injured or detained within the country and abroad," Erdogan said in a speech at the military academy in Istanbul, as quoted by the Haberturk newspaper.
Relations between Ankara and the Kurds both inside the country and in neighboring Syria and Iraq have been deteriorating.
Tensions escalated in July 2015 as fighting between the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, and the Turkish army resumed. Violence escalated further in December, when the Turkish authorities declared a curfew in a number of southeastern regions.
