Operation Hammer (1997)
Failed Turkish military operation against the Kurdistan Worker's Party in northern Iraq / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Operation Hammer (Turkish: Çekiç Harekâtı) was the largest cross-border operation done in the history of Turkish Armed Forces into northern Iraq between 12 May and 7 July 1997 against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Operation Hammer | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict and Iraqi Kurdish Civil War | |||||||
Turkish Special Forces personnel from the 29th Special Forces Battalion 4 weeks into the operation. | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Turkey Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)[2] |
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)[3] | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Altay Tokat[4] | Abdullah Öcalan | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
30,000[5]–50,000 soldiers[2] 10,000 village guards[5] | 5,000–6,000 PKK fighters[6][non-primary source needed][page needed] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Total: 314 killed |
PKK: 2,730 killed, 415 captured[7] |
The operation's objectives were to destroy PKK units in northern Iraq, to strengthen Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party in its ongoing Civil War with Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the hope that the KDP would prevent further PKK raids into Turkey, and to counter Iranian influence in the region as Turkey accused Iran of supporting the PKK, and over 2,000 Iranian forces had entered Iraqi Kurdistan that year to aid the PUK.[9]