ANKARA, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Turkish security forces have eliminated thousands of outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members and only around 500 of them remained inside the country, the Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Wednesday.
"Slightly over 500 (PKK) terrorists remain in Turkey," he said at a gendarmerie command meeting.
"We will make all preparations and use all our capacity to eliminate these 500 terrorists in 2020," he added.
Soylu recalled that more than 5,500 members of the PKK were present in Turkey in previous years.
And 111 PKK members surrendered to the security forces in 2019 and the total figure for the past three years reached 600, he said.
The PKK, which has launched a military campaign against Ankara for more than 30 years, is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the EU.
"Altogether 363 terrorists this year, and 1,144 terrorists in total were neutralized after identification of their locations by unmanned aerial vehicles," Suleyman Soylu said last week, elaborating on the intense security operations against the PKK in the past three years.
