The chief of general staff declared in its written statement published in the afternoon on February 29 the end of the land operation in South Kurdistan. It was said that the units of the colonial Turkish Armed Forces had started to leave South Kurdistan since the morning of February 29. The general staff claimed that altogether 240 guerrillas, 24 soldiers and 3 village protectors had died.
The People`s Defence Force ( HPG ), however, announced that the Turkish army had to withdraw from South Kurdistan without achieving any strategical points and that more than 125 soldiers were killed in the operations and 9 guerrillas became martyrs. Furthermore, they had seized many weapons. The HPG evaluated the operation of the Turkish army as the "most wretched, shameful, embarressing and fruitless operation"
The decision came after US Minister of Defence Robert Gates met with the Prime Minister, the President, the chief of general staff and the National Defence Minister in Ankara on February 28 and after US president Bush had said: "They should leave as quickly as possible."
In its statement the chief of general staff claimed that the operation had not been ended because of foreign influence but because of reaching its goals. The general staff that had been preparing itself for the operation for months claiming "to annihilate the PKK " drew attention on itself when it said "There is no doubt that the terror organisation was not totally annihilated with an operation carried out in one region."
While the news of the withdrawal threw the bourgeois media into panic, racist and fascist oppositional parties expressed their wish for the continuation of the operation.