Turkey Launches New Operation Against Armed Kurdish Separatist in Country's South, Reports Suggest

ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkey’s Interior Ministry said on Monday that a new operation was launched aimed a combating Kurdish separatist movements in the country’s southern regions, media reported.

According to state news agency Anadolu, the ministry said that over 1,600 personnel from the gendarmerie, police, and village guards were mobilized in 96 teams as part of Operation Eren-8 Amanoslar.

The operations will span the provinces of Osmaniye, Hatay and Gaziantep, all bordering Syria’s northwest.

This is in addition to the seven other anti-terrorist operations underway in the country’s heavily Kurdish eastern provinces.

Ankara has waged war with Kurdish groups, especially the leftist Kurdish Workers’ Party, for over 40 years accusing them of terrorist campaigns that have cost tens of thousands of lives. About 15 percent of Turkey’s population is Kurdish and Ankara is quick to quash any separatist ambitions of the world’s largest stateless people.