The Current Turkish War Is Against Kurdistan Region, Not Against the PKK
June 28, 2020, 1:32 pm

The Current Turkish War Is Against Kurdistan Region, Not Against the PKK

Jwan Dibo

Fighting the Kurds inside and outside Turkey has become a top priority for Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For president Erdogan, this tendency has turned into a postulate when he succeeded to transform Turkey’s long-standing parliamentary system into a heavily

centralized presidential one.

Since September 25, 2017, the date of the independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey has intensified its frequent raids on various sites in Kurdistan Region, under the pretext of targeting PKK’s bases. The magnitude and quality of recent Turkish bombing and raids in the framework of what is known as the joint Claw-Eagle and Claw-Tiger operations, exceed

the actual size and role of PKK’s militants in the targeted areas. Even some of the areas hit by the Turkish Air Forces around the city of Mosul have never witnessed any presence or activities by PKK. Thus, the ongoing Turkish assault against PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan can be understood and analysed as an antagonistic and a stern message to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) rather than to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

What makes this likelihood more reasonable is that the continuing Turkish shelling has coincided with a similar Iranian on-going attack against areas around the capital of Arbil on the pretext of aiming Iranian Kurdish sites. This reflects that there has always been a highlevel of coordination and collaboration between both countries against everything linked to the Kurds, principally Kurdistan Regional Federation. This intelligence partnership

between Turkey and Iran includes as well as Iraqi government, irrespective of its ‘belated and timid’ condemnation regarding Turkish violation against Iraqi sovereignty. Historically, what united the four states which divide Kurdistan, viz, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, despite their numerous

and complicated disagreements, is fighting the Kurds and undermining their attempts for freedom.

If the Iraqi government is serious about its discontent towards the Turkish ongoing violations against Iraqi sovereignty, then it would have been trying to freeze or to abolish the security agreement of 1984 between Turkey and Iraq. The agreement which Ankara has used it as a legal

pretension for its continued attacks on Iraqi Kurdistan, under the pretence of pursuing PKK's fighters. However, the successive Iraqi governments since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 were adhering to that treaty and the current government is not in the process of reviewing it or

the possibility of annulling it. So, it is possible to say that all consecutive Iraqi governments followed the collapse of al-Baath regime in 2003 so far were implicitly happy with Turkish offensives and incursions. This is, of course, to embarrass KRG that it cannot protect its own territory and to push it to clash with PKK forces. Furthermore, to minimise the aspirations of Kurdistan region toward independence.

Based on these bitter facts, the options available to the KRG seem to be very limited but they are nonetheless present. KRG can employ this opportunity against Turkey diplomatically, legally, and economically. Diplomatically, KRG can ask the federal government in Baghdad to

reconsider the security accord signed with Turkey in 1984, even to request to be annulled.

This agreement, which has always been used by Turkey as a legal foundation to bomb, invade and occupy different areas of Iraqi Kurdistan in order to build permanent military bases. KRG can, also, demand the federal government in Baghdad to internationalise this issue within global forums and institutions including the United Nation and the Security Council.

Economically, KRG can wave the economic and commercial paper against Turkish government, as Turkey invests billions of dollars in Kurdistan. Regrettably, to date, KRG has only issued a timid and disappointing statement regarding present Turkish violations. The current Turkish aggression against allegedly PKK’s bases in Iraqi Kurdistan is an indirect

message to KRG, whose relationship with Turkey has worsened in the wake of the independence referendum in September 2017. It is also a message to Iraqi government, especially, the present bombarding included new areas near Mosul, where PKK rebels do not exist. This operation and others in Syria and Libya are parts of Turkey's Erdogan willingness to

welcome the year of 2023, which means for the new sultan as signs of reviving some manifestations of the defunct Ottoman empire. Likewise, to get rid of the restrictions imposed on Turkey by the triumphant allies since the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923. Turkey arrests Kurdish politicians and parliamentarians at home and in Turkish Kurdistan.

Moreover, it combats the Kurds in Syrian Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey has occupied many of Kurdish regions in Syria as well as in Iraq and its eyes are directed towards Mosul and Kurdistan, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. All this with the aim to undermine the federal region of Kurdistan, which Turkey cannot yet pronounce its real name, i.e. the Kurdistan region, and instead of that, call it northern Iraq.

by : Jwan Dibo

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