Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan aims to legitimise his occupation and planned attacks on Kurdish regions in northern Iraq via his upcoming diplomatic visits to Baghdad and Hewlêr [Erbil] in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), an umbrella Kurdish political organisation has said.
“Although the official purpose of this visit is the promotion of trade and economic relations between the two countries, Turkey’s real aim is to gain legitimacy for its 87 military bases on as well as its occupation of Iraqi territory and to legitimise its planned new attack,” the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Foreign Relations Committee said in a statement published online. “Based on this and under the pretext of ‘security’, the Turkish state thus wants to broaden its occupation of Iraqi soil.”
The KCK sought to represent Turkey’s attacks as a threat not only to the Kurdish people but to all of Iraq, stating: “Erdoğan’s government violates Iraq’s sovereignty and uses the country’s territory and airspace as it wishes. Every day, dozens of times Iraqi villages, houses and cars are bombed and civilians are massacred by Turkey.”
Their warning comes at a time when Turkey is occupying a strip of land on the Turkey-Iraq border, up to 40km inside Iraqi territory and has established over 60 military bases in the area. The Turkish military is renewing its attacks against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), particularly in the Gara mountain area. Turkish airstrikes inside the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan are increasing.
A total of 358 airstrikes were carried out by Turkish forces in the border region from 1 January to 1 April this year, according to Community Peace Teams in Iraq. Turkish aerial attacks have killed at least five civilians so far in 2024. Erdoğan has announced that a “large-scale military operation” will commence soon in Iraqi Kurdistan.
In particular, the KCK identified Erdoğan’s collaboration with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) as cause for concern, saying: “The Turkish government carries out these reckless attacks with the open political, military and logistical support of the KDP. The Kurdish people and Iraqi society are against the collaboration of Turkey and the KDP and against the Turkish occupation…”
They highlighted that the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has long enjoyed friendly relations with Iraqi society, particularly noting that the PKK played a leading role in saving the Yazidi religious minority from a genocide at ISIS’ hands, while the KDP withdrew and Turkey “supported… ISIS, not the Iraqi people.”
Nonetheless, the government in Baghdad announced a ban on the PKK last month. This move followed an earlier visit by a Turkish state delegation. However, the Iraqi state stopped short of declaring the PKK a terrorist organisation.
“The only Iraqi force that promotes and supports Turkey’s permanent settlement on Iraqi territory is the KDP leadership,” the KCK said. “The KDP must immediately end its sinister relations with the Erdoğan government, which today finds itself in a process of collapse, and should not cooperate with Turkey on issues that are to the detriment of the Kurdish people and Iraqi society.”
These attacks were occurring under the “pretext” of development projects, water agreements and joint security agreements, all enabling the Turkish government to expand its “occupation” in Iraqi Kurdistan, they said.
