The Iraqi Kurdish and federal Iraqi authorities must act urgently in the face of an imminent Turkish military offensive, the umbrella organisation Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) have warned in a statement, in which they also called on Kurdish and all Iraqi citizens to hold their governments to account.
“The lack of reaction by Baghdad and Hewlêr (Erbil) against the Turkish occupation of southern Kurdistan and Iraqi territory is a very serious threat to the future of the communities living in Iraq,” the KCK’s foreign relations committee said in their statement. “The danger is that the Turkish occupation is permanent and will eventually turn into an annexation.”
The news came as observers in Iraq shared footage of Turkish soldiers walking through Kesta village in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), stating that up to 300 Turkish tanks had crossed the border to the KRI in the last days. It was also recently reported that up to 15,000 Turkish soldiers had entered the semi-autonomous region in recent days, with the KCK themselves pointing to the continual arrival of heavy weapons and convoys into the KRI.
The KCK described a situation of de facto occupation, writing: “In the places it occupies, the Turkish army is attempting to establish forbidden zones where no one is permitted to enter. The Turkish military uses this strategy, among other things, to carry out a thorough campaign of rural evacuation and displacement.” This policy has resulted in the mass displacement of Kurdish youth and the death of thousands on the refugee trail, the KCK added.
Turkey has been involved in a long-standing conflict with Kurdish groups, particularly the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Turkish government has carried out numerous military operations against the PKK in neighbouring countries, including Iraq and Syria. In its statement, the KCK argues that Turkey’s intention to involve Iraq in its military campaigns is a direct violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and a threat to the stability of the region.
Addressing the Iraqi authorities in Baghdad, who recently held high-level meetings with Turkish military, intelligence and political chiefs before taking a joint public stance against the PKK, the KCK warned: “In a situation where the Turkish army already occupies thirty to forty kilometers of Iraqi territory, has established hundreds of military bases and outposts in these territories and uses the airspace and ground as it chooses, both Iraqi border security and Iraqi sovereignty have been breached.”
This situation would particularly harm Iraq’s millions of Kurds, the KCK said, condemning the role of Iraqi Kurdistan’s dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in facilitating Turkey’s occupation of Kurdish soil. “The Kurdish people should be highly conscious of the KDP’s corrupt and sinister links with the genocidal Turkish regime,” said the KCK. “It has become evident that the KDP have no interest in protecting the Kurdish identity; they are primarily concerned with building their own fortune and that of their families.”
Given the reality of ongoing political, economic and security collaboration between the KRI’s governing authorities, Baghdad and the Turkish occupying forces, the KCK concluded their statement with a call to “Iraqi political parties, media, journalists, tribes, faith groups, intellectuals, writers, academics and society,” and particularly the “patriotic Kurdish youth”, to take a stand.
“The genocidal-colonialist Turkish state is openly seizing and annexing the lands of southern Kurdistan before the eyes of the world, disregarding international law and moral standards, they wrote. “The most essential obligation of every Kurd and Iraqi citizen is to resist against this.”
