Turkish PM vows to battle PKK 'until the end'

Munich: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Saturday to continue to hit Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in Iraq and criticised EU countries for not cracking down fully on PKK affiliates within the bloc.

"We are going to continue until we win," Erdogan said in a speech to a security conference in the southern German city of Munich. "We will continue until the end because the security of our people is our top priority."

Erdogan criticised European countries for failing to crack down on PKK-led organisations he said were operating across the bloc. Turkey, the United States and the European Union all class the PKK as a terrorist group.

He said, "Despite this, the PKK is still operating in many European countries under different names. Unfortunately they are being supported."

Turkey has been carrying out periodic raids on PKK positions in the mountainous region near Turkey's border with northern Iraq for months to try to crush the group, which wants a separate Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people since the group began its armed struggle in 1984.