Turkey says soldier killed by gunfire from Iran at border: What to know
Turkey said a soldier was killed by suspected gunfire from Iran, as Ankara seeks closer cooperation with Tehran on border security.
ANKARA — A Turkish soldier was killed by gunfire believed to have come from the Iranian side of the border in a deadly cross-border incident, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said Thursday.
What happened: Infantry Private Yusuf Sait Unlu was killed Saturday near a border outpost along the Iranian border in the country’s southeastern Hakkari province “while responding to an illegal crossing,” the ministry said in a written response to journalists’ questions.
He died “as a result of gunfire assessed to have come from the Iranian side,” the ministry added, saying Turkish and Iranian officials met at the scene on Tuesday, without identifying which officials attended.
Both countries launched separate investigations into the incident, and efforts are underway to clarify “all aspects of the incident” in coordination with Iranian authorities, according to the Turkish ministry.
Why it matters: The soldier’s killing is a rare deadly incident on the Turkey-Iran border in recent years. It comes amid heightened regional tensions over the ongoing US-Israel-Iran war, which has raised Ankara’s concerns about a possible influx of Iranian migrants and prompted tighter security and reinforcements on the Turkish side of the border.
Turkey and Iran share a roughly 560-kilometer (more than 345 miles) mountainous border that has long been used for drug smuggling, human trafficking and irregular migration.
Turkey and Iran vie for influence across the region, particularly in Syria, Iraq and the South Caucasus, yet they remain linked by significant trade and energy ties. Concerned about spillover along the shared border with Iran, Ankara has criticized the war that began with US and Israeli strikes in February.
Turkish Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci and his Iranian counterpart, Eskandar Momeni, discussed increasing border security coordination during talks in Ankara on Sept. 16.
Background: The talks between Ciftci and Momeni also came as Ankara seeks coordination with Tehran in a peace process launched by the Turkish government with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in 2024.
Ciftci and Momeni discussed potential security risks linked to the PKK-affiliated Iranian Kurdish militant group Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), according to a Turkish statement released after the meeting.
“It was very important for the PKK’s PJAK affiliate in Iran to also be included in [the peace] process,” Ciftci said after the talks, adding that PKK members opposed to the peace process could cross into Iran and strengthen the group's presence there.
PJAK was founded by the PKK in 2004 and waged an armed struggle for Kurdish rights in Iran before reaching a ceasefire with the Iranian government in 2011, following an intensified Iranian military campaign against the group.
Ankara’s push to coordinate with Tehran on the peace process follows years of Turkish accusations that Iran has failed to support its fight against the PKK. The war could open a path to cooperation on Kurdish militant groups after Washington reportedly considered arming Iranian Kurdish groups to fight the Iranian government. That plan was later shelved, but it prompted Tehran to intensify its crackdown on Kurdish opposition groups inside Iran.
Know more: The PKK has waged an armed insurgency against Turkey since 1984 for Kurdish self-rule and is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. The militant group announced in May 2025 that it would disband and dissolve itself as part of ongoing peace talks.
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