Turkish airstrikes eliminated two members of the PKK terrorist group in northern Iraq where the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) are conducting operation Claw-Lock, the Defense Ministry said Friday.
Local authorities in the region, which is under the control of the semi-autonomous entity, Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), also confirmed the killing of two PKK terrorists on Friday and said another was injured in the drone strike, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States, Britain and the European Union – is responsible for over 40,000 civilian and security personnel deaths in Türkiye during an almost four-decadelong campaign of terror. The PKK carried out attacks killing more than a dozen Turkish soldiers in the past two months in northern Iraq, a high toll that only increased Turkish operations in the region.
Since Turkish operations have driven its domestic presence to near extinction, the PKK has moved a large chunk of its operations to northern Iraq, including a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil.
Türkiye has over the past 25 years operated several dozen military bases in northern Iraq in its war against the PKK, as well as the war against Daesh, which controlled much of the area, in 2014 and 2015, when Ankara was an ally in the U.S.-led anti-Daesh campaign.
Operation Claw-Lock was launched in April 2022 as part of Ankara’s intensifying offensives to demolish terrorists lairs across Metina, Avashin-Basyan, Zap and Gara districts and prevent the formation of a terror corridor along Turkish borders.
The PKK also currently occupies Sinjar, Makhmour, Qandil and Sulaymaniyah in the region, which Türkiye says threatens the territorial integrity of Iraq but neither Baghdad nor the KRG recognize the PKK as a terror group officially and Turkish strikes remain a prickling issue between the neighbors.
Turkish officials have repeatedly urged Iraq, as well as the KRG, to recognize the PKK as a terrorist group, assuring Türkiye’s respect of Iraq’s sovereignty and commitment to only targeting terrorists.
In recent months, the Turkish defense minister and intelligence chiefs paid visits to Baghdad and Irbil to discuss security cooperation, which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has hailed as having “softened the mood” after the killing of Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq but the foothold the PKK has been gaining in KRG-run Sulaymaniyah through the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) is still troubling for Ankara.
Türkiye recently accused the PUK of links to the terrorist group in the city, as Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned last month the country would “not hesitate to take further measures if the PUK refuses to change its supportive stance of the PKK despite Ankara’s steps toward Sulaymaniyah.”
The PUK is accused of giving more freedom of movement both in the city and rural parts of Sulaymaniyah to PKK, which could mean a spillover of terrorist violence to a wider region. The PKK seeks to legitimize its presence through political parties and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Türkiye’s southern neighbor while PUK seeks international legitimacy for its collaboration with the terrorist group under the guise of a “joint fight against the terrorist group Daesh.”
Ankara has expressed readiness to collaborate with Baghdad against both the PKK and Daesh.
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