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Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Tuesday that 96 suspects were captured in 22 provinces in operations against the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), a terrorist group known for its close ties to the PKK, another terrorist group which is currently in the process of disarmament.
Suspects captured in operations including in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir were associated with the terrorist group’s “youth and press wings,” Yerlikaya said in a social media post. He added that suspects held online meetings and were instructed to carry out attacks in those meetings. They were also involved in social media propaganda for MLKP.
The MLKP, founded in 1994, is on Türkiye’s list of “primary terrorist organizations.”
In January 2023, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) eliminated Zeki Gürbüz, a group leader in Syria, in an operation in the country’s Hassakeh.
Although it tries to portray itself as a separate group, the MLKP often aligns with the PKK. The PKK has conducted a bloody campaign of terrorism across Türkiye for decades, killing thousands of people, particularly in the southeast. In 2024, Türkiye launched the terror-free Türkiye initiative for the dissolution of the PKK. Upon the call of PKK’s jailed ringleader Abdullah Öcalan, the terrorist group announced it would dissolve itself and began the disarmament last summer.
During Türkiye’s operations in Syria’s north to wipe out the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, the YPG, in 2019, several MLKP members joined the YPG in terrorist attacks targeting Turkish security and Syrian opposition forces.
