The presence of the PKK terrorists in Iraq’s Sinjar causes a security threat for the civilians in the region, as the Iraqi military carries out an operation to clear the area to implement the 2020 deal.
Clashes between Iraqi security forces and the PKK terrorists have intensified, as displaced Yazidis want peace and stability to be restored in the area so they can return after eight years in camps, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported Thursday.
The PKK terrorist presence in Sinjar started after Daesh terrorists entered the area on Aug. 3, 2014, and targeted the Yazidis.
By November 2015, the Peshmerga fighters liberated the area from Daesh, and the PKK increased its activities in the area in 2017, when Iraqi security forces were deployed in the area.
Concerned about its existence after the central Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) reached an agreement in 2020, the PKK launched incessant terrorist attacks targeting the Peshmerga forces, police and civilians.
The Iraqi government has recently come under pressure to implement the Sinjar deal amid an ongoing economic crisis, protests, political disagreements and instability.
Although the government had announced the deployment of two brigades to the region, it has not presented a clear plan on how the PKK terrorists would be cleared from the area.
The PKK terrorists clashed with the Iraqi military on April 19, and a contingent of the Iraqi army started moving toward Sinjar from Mosul on April 25, according to Rudaw.
According to the secretary-general of the Yazidi Democrat Party, Haydar Shasho, the PKK terrorists were forced to withdraw after clashes with the Iraqi military earlier this week.
"The Iraqi military has taken a hold of most of the control points between Sinun and Hanasor," Shasho said, adding that some Iraqi soldiers and PKK terrorists have been killed in the clashes, although they do not know the exact number.
Sinjar is wedged between Turkey to the north and Syria to the west, making it a highly strategic zone long coveted by both the central government in Baghdad and the KRG in the north.
Both Yazidi and KRG officials frequently note that the PKK's presence in the area obstructs the reconstruction of Sinjar and the return of residents to their homes.
The latest violence "led to the displacement of 710 families, or 4,083 people," Hussein Klari, of the KRG interior ministry's crisis unit, told a press conference.
They received sanctuary in the KRG-controlled region's Dohuk province, he said.
The Sinjar region has also been a target of Turkish airstrikes on the rear bases of the PKK terrorists.
The PKK has bases and training camps in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq and on the mountainous border with Turkey.
The PKK terrorist group managed to establish a foothold in Sinjar in mid-2014 under the pretext of protecting the local Yazidi community from the Daesh terrorist group. Since then, the PKK has reportedly established a new base in Sinjar for its logistical and command-and-control activities. Around 450,000 Yazidis escaped Sinjar after Daesh took control of the region in mid-2014.