The Iraqi army’s move to establish control in the Yazidi homeland of Sinjar (Shengal), coinciding with the latest Turkish incursion into Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), has raised the question whether Turkey is behind Iraq’s recent move.
Journalist and Middle East expert Fehim Taştekin underlined in an article in Al Monitor on Tuesday that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had stressed before that ‘they would not let Sinjar turn into another Qandil,’, with reference to the Qandil Mountains in KRI where Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has bases.
Turkey regards the Yazidi fighters as part of the PKK, designated a ‘terrorist group’ in Turkey. While this is widely parroted by officials of various states and by media outlets, and while the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBŞ) were actually formed with the assistance of the PKK during the resistance against the massacres of the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014-15, operational and tactical links between the two are speculative.
Taştekin said:
“A complex balance of power has emerged in Sinjar after the defeat of IS. The YBS, Ezidxan Asayish, Iraqi government troops, the mostly Shiite militias known as the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU), a Yazidi group within the PMU and a Yazidi unit within Iraqi Kurdistan’s peshmerga forces are all present in Sinjar city and surrounding settlements. A key factor shaping the climate in the area is an enduring mistrust among Yazidis towards the Iraqi army and the peshmerga forces of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the ruling party in Iraqi Kurdistan, over their abandonment of Sinjar during IS’s genocidal campaign in the region.”
Taştekin quoted Erbil-based political analyst Siddik Hasan Sukru, who, he said, ‘believes the escalation in Sinjar is linked to Turkey’s Operation Claw-Lock.’
Taştekin noted:
“Since government-affiliated forces are already present in Sinjar, the latest deployment decision was ‘odd’ and the troops acted ‘as if they were conquering an occupied land,’ Sukru told Al-Monitor. Kadhimi ordered the deployment at Erdogan’s request, he claimed, noting that security cooperation was underway between the two sides under a deal reached during the Turkish defence minister’s visit to Baghdad last year.”
