Turkiye said on Monday that three more of his soldiers had died after being exposed to methane gas during a cave search operation in Northern Iraq, which takes the total toll to eight.
The incident arrives at a sensitive moment with Turkiye in conversations to finish the conflict with the Kurds after the PKK militant group agreed to finish their armed struggle of decades.
The conflict, which began in 1984, has cost more than 40,000 lives.
The deaths occurred when the Turkish troops were looking for the remains of a soldier who was shot dead by Kurds fighters in the area in May 2022 and whose body was never recovered, said Turkiye’s Ministry of Defense.
“Three other of our heroic comrades of arms, affected by methane gas, have died, which took the total number of victims to eight,” the ministry said in X on Monday.
He did not explain the origin of methane gas in the caves.
“During a search operation in a cave … previously known as a hospital … 19 of our staff were exposed to methane gas,” the ministry said Sunday.
When the soldier whose body looked for the troops died in 2022, Turkiye was fighting Operation Claw Lock, with his troops seeking to eradicate PKK Kurdish militants locked in caves along the border.
The news of the deaths emerged as a Delegation of the Dem Pro-Kurdo party visited the founder of PKK, Abdullah Olalan, as part of the ongoing negotiations with the Turkish government.
