Sulaimani, Iraq (July 5, 2023): Turkey announced on Wednesday that it had "neutralized" a top Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) operative who was the mastermind behind the assassination of a Turkish diplomat in Erbil in 2019.

The Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency identified the operative as Celal Kaya, known by the nom de guerre Hassan. He was reportedly killed in a security operation in Sulaimani.

Kaya was believed to have been the mastermind of the assassination of Osman Kose, a Turkish diplomat working at the country's Consulate General in Erbil. Kose was killed by a PKK assassin in July 2019.

The Turkish state media alleged that Kaya had been "collecting intelligence" on the armed forces and carrying out attacks against the country's officials.

The news comes as Turkey on Monday extended its flight ban to Sulaimani International Airport until January 2024 over Ankara's concerns that the airport has become a "hub" for the PKK.

Ankara has in recent years increased its attacks against alleged members of the Kurdish group in the Kurdistan Region's urban areas.

Bolstered by its advanced drone industry, Turkey has ramped up its drone strikes in recent years, particularly in the urban centers of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, to target suspected PKK positions.

The PKK-Turkey conflict has been going on since the mid-1980s and has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people from both sides.

Much of the conflict has been fought in the border areas of the Kurdistan Region, which has endangered the civilian population.