Washington Kurdish Institute
November 26, 2019
Little light has been given on Turkey’s military operations in the Kurdish region of Iraq. In a time where many focus on Syria and Turkey’s attempts to defeat the Syrian Kurds, Kurds in Iraq have also been living in a similar situation for many years now.
Specifically, the Qandil Mountains in Iraq (around 40km southeast of the Turkish border) have been a battlefield for Turkey since the 1990s, through many specific and sporadic attacks. In 2008 offensives in northern Iraq intensified, such that the area was violently bombed by Turkish air strikes in February, causing numerous deaths and internal displacements as well as marking the first ground operation in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. This attack was known as ‘Operation Sun’ and took everyone by surprise, including the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi government. In 2008, Iraq was slowly rebuilding its administration and had to call on the international community for help in order to regain its territories invaded by Turkey, as it was threatening the region’s equilibrium. The US Government also urged Turkey to limit its operations to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and to not threaten Iraq’s domestic security or the KRG. Despite the many monitions, Turkey continued long-range attacks in Iraq against the believed-to-be PKK hidings and has been protracting the attacks since.
In 2016, just before the major military campaign headed by Kurdish Peshmerga which brought to the liberation of Mosul from the Islamic State, Turkey had expressed its interest in Mosul. This interest was intended as a way for Turkey to gain influence in the Nineveh Governate and establish a strong military presence. According to an agreement signed in 1995 and 1997 between Iraq and Turkey, Ankara is allowed to have military presence in Iraq as long as it stays between 30km from the border and does not exceed 2.000 troops total. Since 2016, Turkish military presence in Iraq increased as well as its military compounds. This expansion was due to the high presence of Islamic State militias, though also because of the bases’ proximity to the area of the Qandil Mountains – area with a high presence of PKK members. However, Iraq declared this expansion as a violation in 2017, several months after the upgrading presence was confirmed, and when five Peshmerga were killed during a Turkish airstrike.
In June 2018 Turkey announced that further military operations in the Qandil Mountains were just a matter of time, as the government believed that high-ranking members of the PKK were hiding specifically in that area. Turkey’s Minister of Interior Soylu’s words were reported by Reuters in June 2018, as he explicitly stated that “Qandil is not a distant target for us anymore. Right now, a lot of positions have been seized there (by Turkish forces), especially in the northern Iraq region”. Consequently proving a breach of international law and especially a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and national self-determination principle. However, many analysts and reporters tried to understand what Turkey was actually seeking in northern Iraq at the time, given they never actually quit their military operations in the area. For example, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Aaron Stein, told Ahval, while discussing about Turkey’s intentions to eradicate the PKK from Qandil, that he doesn’t “know what this actually means”.
As of today, Stein’s question remains an open dilemma, as the Qandil Mountains are 40km away from the Turkish border, while the Nineveh Governorate, which includes Mosul and hosts the passing of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline, is much closer. Notwithstanding further interest Turkey may seek in northern Iraq, since 2018 the Kurdish populated area in Qandil has been suffering massive and violent attacks from Turkey. Around twenty Kurdish villages in the area live in a state of panic and have been continuously demanding Baghdad for help, accusing the central government of inaction. Farmers and residents told Asharq al-Awsat they have been living in “total horror” for more than a year and that villages are being continuously attacked indiscriminately by sporadic Turkish airstrikes.
These last events described in Qandil, which officially began in fall 2018, are still in progress and may be added to second military campaign the Turkish Army is carrying on always in northern Iraq and considered as a counterterrorism effort: ‘Operation Claw’. This last begun in May 2019 and has been hitting the Harkuk Region ever since, believed to be the hiding of many other PKK militants. This specific operation, unlike the others, wants to eradicate the PKK completely and cancel any presence of it in northern Iraq. However, it is believed that Turkey’s final goal is to keep control of the mountainous province, as their presence is thought as fundamental in order to maintain peace in Turkey and avoid any PKK resurgence against Ankara.
These military campaigns in Qandil, and the previous operations in Iraq completed by Turkey, all show how Turkey’s interest may not only be seen in Syria, but also in Iraq. Iraq is hit by Turkish airstrikes and military campaigns since the 1990s, their final goal has always been the defeat of the PKK militants in northern Iraq, however many civilians inhabit those lands. Regardless, the international community has not made any official declarations on Turkey’s operations in Iraq. Villages, families, Kurdish and Arab communities, all live within the territories hit by Turkey’s ghost war in Iraq.
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