The PKK ( "Workers' Party of Kurdistan") is categorized as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU. The group resumed its thirty-year long armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015.

Since then, the PKK terrorist attacks killed over 800 members of Turkish security forces. They have also killed more than 350 civilians, including one hundred children. At least 8500 PKK terrorists were killed in army operations during the same period.

Police forces and the Turkish army launched attacks against positions of the separatist terrorist organization PKK and pursue its armed members in the south and southeast of the country and in northern Iraq in response to terrorist attacks by the organization within Turkey, which target civilians and members of security forces.