Shafaq News / the People's Protection Forces (YPG), PKK military wing announced on Friday that seven of its members were killed in Afshin area on Mar 3 during the battles with the Turkish forces in Kurdistan.

On April 23, Turkey launched Claw-Lightning and Claw-Thunderbolt operations in northern Iraq against PKK militants.

On May 3, the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Turkish Chargé d’Affaires to Baghdad, in protest against the Turkish Defense Minister’s visit to Iraqi lands "without coordination," describing the Turkish presence as "unlawful."

Kurdish border villages and mountains have been a target for Turkish air and artillery strikes pursuing that it target fighters opposing them, and these operations resulted in casualties and material damage.

Turkey is taking its decades-old conflict with Kurdish militants deep into northern Iraq, establishing military bases and deploying armed military drones against the fighters in their mountain strongholds.

Turkey has been battling an “insurgency” in its mainly Kurdish southeast by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants that has killed 40,000 people since the 1980s and which has largely been directed from within Iraq.