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Rohat Baran
Translated from Yeni Özgür Politika
Impositions on – and attacks against – Sinjar in Iraqi Kurdistan have reached a new stage with the deployment of ten thousand soldiers by the Baghdad administration.
Iraq is currently faced with instability on all levels: people have taken to the streets; there has been ethnic and inter-religious tension; intense conflicts are taking place and it is not clear whether the Iraq administration will survive. Now one questions how the Baghdad administration can dare to deploy such a force to Sinjar.
The United States administration had stated that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) would be removed from Sinjar even before the Sinjar agreement was signed on 9 October between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Iraq government. It should be noted that two other important incidents for Kurds occurred on 9 October. That date marks the day the international conspiracy was launched against leader Abdullah Öcalan years ago; it is also the day that attacks against Serêkaniyê and Girê Spî were launched based on the same overall concept against Kurds.
Considering the wider regional context, it additionally seems that Iran will be besieged. In fact, Donald Trump’s speeches that he will not step down from his post, and Pompeo’s words that the second Trump era will begin are not separate from that fact. The seriousness of the situation regionally becomes even more evident when we consider what has occurred and is occurring in Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Armenia. Tensions in Lebanon are rising. After the shipyard explosion in Lebanon, the intervention of the US has taken place. The government has collapsed and the initiative to eradicate Hizbullah has become a central aim. Various sources indicate that the US is deploying forces in different fields for that reason. Israel has also been targeting Iran’s forces in Syria at times.
The Turkish state is already in a deadlocked situation. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) may be increasingly engaged in supporting US policies to ensure its own survival. However, taking advantage of the situation, it aims to attack the Kurdish political freedom movement. It is understood that there has been an agreement and a plan in place between the US and Turkey for some considerable time. Turkey aims to show that it is indispensible to the US’s designs of encircling Iran; it at the same time expands its sphere of influence by occupying areas from Karabakh to Medya Defense Areas (Northern Iraq) and Iraqi Kurdistan (Southern Kurdistan).
It can be said that Turkey has gained US approval to use it as a military base through negotiations that ensured that an agreement was reached between the US, Turkey, the KDP and the Baghdad administration. The US will use Turkey and Turkey will occupy Iraqi Kurdistan; it will remove the PKK from Iraqi Kurdistan and ensure Iraq’s control of Sinjar. This plan is clear.
Alongside this plan, a concept similar to the one that was implemented in 2003-2004 has been put in place against the Kurdish political freedom movement, the PKK. There had been attempts to eradicate the PKK by internal means in the past. Now, external attacks and interventions are being used. These forces have been waging war against the PKK for years. However, they have not yet been able to defeat it. The PKK fights war under harsh conditions and yet makes significant moves. It had made a significant move during the period of liquidationism in 2003; it will do so again against the ongoing attacks. The deployment of ten thousand soldiers to Sinjar has to be viewed within this overall strategic framework.
