Turkey And Its PKK Arch-Enemy Accuse Each Other Of Plotting To Take Over Iraqi Kurdistan

Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) recently accused each other of wanting to take over Iraqi Kurdistan, a region in which they have clashed with each other for decades now.

“It [the PKK] has almost controlled Sulaimani, its cities and 1,000 of its villages. Actually, the PKK’s aim is to control the Erbil administration [as well],” claimed Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on September 8.

The PKK responded by releasing a statement that said its goal is, on the contrary, to “defend the people of Kurdistan.” 

“Therefore, seizing Hewler [Erbil] can only be the plan of the Turkish special war,” the statement claimed. “As the PKK, our goal is to remove and liberate Kurdistan from Turkish occupation.”

The PKK is an armed group that has fought the Turkish state for autonomy in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast since taking up arms in 1984. Turkey, the United States, and the European Union designate it as a terrorist organization. No fewer than 40,000 people have lost their lives in the Turkish-PKK conflict to date.

Iraqi Kurdistan’s two western provinces of Erbil, where Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital city is situated, and Duhok are controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the preeminent and most powerful political party in Iraqi Kurdistan. The region’s eastern province of Sulaimani is controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the second most powerful party in the autonomous region.

Both parties have tens-of-thousands of their own Peshmerga forces.

The KDP and PKK have long been rivals with the former repeatedly insisting that the latter should leave Iraqi Kurdistan to spare it from the destruction caused by that perennial conflict. Many ordinary Kurds are also fed up with seemingly never-ending Turkish-PKK clashes, which have forced thousands of civilians to abandon their homes and villages and vast swathes of farmland becoming badly damaged or inaccessible for years.

The PKK’s main headquarters is on Qandil Mountain in Iraqi Kurdistan, which the Turkish Air Force has repeatedly bombed for many years. Turkey has long maintained several forward operating bases (FOBs) in Duhok and, beginning in 2018, Erbil provinces. Turkey’s latest military offensive against the PKK, operations Claw Eagle and Claw Tiger, began in mid-June 2020. In a mere fortnight, Turkey increased its number of FOBs in Iraqi Kurdistan from 24 to 36. 

That rapid military expansion deeper into Iraqi Kurdistan, which Turkey claims is temporary, has led even some in the KDP to privately worry that Turkey’s expanding military presence in the region may have ulterior motives beyond solely fighting the PKK. 

In July, the Turkish presidency’s Directorate of Communications released a map which showed that Turkey has 37 “military points” in Iraqi Kurdistan, two of which even appear to be located inside the cities of Erbil and Duhok.

The PUK has had much more cordial relations with the PKK, and the group has a larger and more visible presence in Sulaimani than in Erbil or Duhok.

In 2014, one PKK-affiliated journalist, referring to the group’s strength in the PUK-controlled region, even joked that “it will take us 2 hours to arrest all PUK leaders in Suli [Sulaimani], if we want.”

Cavusoglu’s recent allegation about the PKK controlling large swathes of Sulaimani isn’t the first time Turkey has made such allegations.

In August 2017, the PKK captured two agents belonging to Turkey’s MIT intelligence service in Sulaimani. Ankara expelled PUK diplomats shortly afterward. 

After Iraqi Kurdistan held an independence referendum in September 2017, the central government in Baghdad responded by imposing a flight ban on the autonomous region. That ban was lifted the following March. Turkey immediately permitted flights from its airspace to fly to Erbil International Airport but not to Sulaimani International Airport, alleging that the PUK was aiding and abetting the PKK.

In a clear bid to placate Ankara, the PUK made a show of shutting down offices of political parties affiliated with the PKK in Sulaimani. Turkey responded shortly afterward by finally permitting flights to and from the province in January 2019. 

Turkey’s airstrikes against the PKK and its affiliates in Sulaimani province have come increasingly closer to populated areas over the past year.

On June 25, a Turkish airstrike targeted a pickup truck belonging to the PJAK group, the PKK’s Iranian wing, in the Sulaimani village of Kuna Masi next to a shop in a populated area wounding six civilians. Approximately 40 civilians were at a adjacent water resort.

Human Rights Watch charged that the strike “failed to take adequate precautions to minimize civilian casualties.” 

That wasn’t the first time Turkey launched such a strike. On October 15, 2019, a Turkish drone assassinated two PKK fighters at another populated resort on Mount Azmar right above Sulaimani city. 

Both incidents aptly demonstrate both the growing risk of civilian casualties and how the Turkish-PKK conflict is very dangerous for Iraqi Kurdistan and its people.