Istanbul The Turkish army announced at dawn today, Sunday, the start of a large-scale military air operation in northern Syria and Iraq, which it called, “The time of reckoning has come,” in response to the explosion on Istiklal Street in the center of Istanbul last week, which killed six people and injured more than 80 others.

The Turkish army said in a statement that the military air operation began at 11:30 am, starting from Diyarbakir military airport in the south of the country, with 70 warplanes and 20 Bayraktar drones.

It pointed out that the Syrian airspace was used for the first time, in coordination with the Russian forces, to bomb several targets belonging to the PKK in response to the explosion in Istanbul, and that the bombing included sites belonging to the Syrian forces in Abu Rasin in the northern countryside of Hasakah, and 8 sites of the PKK / PYD organizations in Syria and 5 locations in northern Iraq.

The Turkish army stated that a military convoy entered through Bab al-Salama crossing into northern Syria.

The Turkish army stated that the Turkish bombardment included Ain al-Arab, Ain Issa, Ain Daqna, Darbasiyah, Tal Refaat, al-Kayyah, near Manaj airport and Qamishli in Syria, and Sinjar, Qandil and Sulaymaniyah in Iraq.

It added that the targets that were bombed in Syria were some of them at a depth of 170 km inside Syrian territory, where more than 100 targets were destroyed so far during the air raids on the sites of the PKK.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu had confirmed that his country’s operations against the PKK in northern Iraq and Syria would not stop.

Çavuşoğlu said in a televised statement last Friday: Our operations in northern Iraq and Syria will not stop, and the strikes of our forces and our special operations carried out by the armed forces and intelligence services against the leaders of the PKK and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units in eastern Syria and northern Iraq will continue.

The city of Istanbul was subjected to an explosive device explosion last Sunday, killing six people and injuring more than 80 people. The Turkish authorities accused the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of carrying out the operation, as the security forces, several hours after the explosion, Syrian Ahlam Al-Bashir was arrested, accusing her of placing explosives in Istiklal Street, in addition to 51 people were arrested on charges of helping Ahlam al-Bashir.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency