Türkiye anticipates its field cooperation with Iraq against the PKK terror group will increasingly continue, according to Defense Ministry sources on Thursday.
“Coordinated efforts with the Iraqi government continue in line with decisions taken during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s last visit to Iraq,” sources said, citing Baghdad’s recent decisions to ban the group from operating in the country and instructing all state institutions to refer to the PKK as a banned group in official correspondence.
It also set up two military bases in the Zakho region in April, which borders southern Türkiye.
Türkiye welcomes the declaration of the PKK as a banned group, but it expects Iraq to recognize it as a full terrorist organization, ministry sources said. “It’s also important for us that three organizations linked to the PKK were closed.”
Baghdad dissolved three political parties connected to the PKK earlier this week. The country’s Supreme Judicial Council approved a request by an electoral commission for the dissolution of the Yazidi Freedom and Democracy Party, the Democratic Struggle Front and the Tavgari Azadi Party, citing their links to the PKK.
The council also ordered the confiscation of the parties’ assets, according to the media reports, though the verdict is subject to appeal.
The terrorist group has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children and infants, since it launched a campaign of violence in Türkiye in the 1980s.
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.
It has a foothold in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous north, which is controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), where the central Iraqi government has little influence.
The PKK has also stepped up its attacks against Iraqi targets recently. Baghdad announced last month that PKK members were behind a string of arsons in the country, including those concentrated in areas controlled by the KRG.
Türkiye's cross-border operations into northern Iraq have been a source of tension with its southeastern neighbor for years. Ankara has asked Iraq for more cooperation in combating the PKK.
Since the start of the year, Ankara has hinted at a final summer offensive against the PKK in both northern Iraq and Syria, where the PKK operates with its local offshoot, the YPG.
Defense Minister Yaşar Güler recently said that the ongoing Operation Claw-Lock, launched in April 2022, would be completed before the winter to sever the ties between Qandil and Syria.
Türkiye aims to wipe out the PKK/YPG from its borders and create a 30-40-kilometer-deep security corridor along the Iraqi and Syrian borders.
Both the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) have since ramped up strikes on the “terror corridor” in the region, especially Gara and Metina, where in December, the PKK killed 21 Turkish soldiers.
Unconfirmed reports say the Turkish army is already advancing along a road connecting Iraq to Syria and has occasionally carried out operations since June.
Similarly, Defense Ministry spokesperson Brig. Adm. Zeki Aktürk, at a weekly briefing on Thursday, said a total of 1,652 terrorists were eliminated in northern Iraq and Syria since the start of the year, including 64 in the last week alone.
The TSK has also discovered dozens of hideouts across the mountains in the Claw-Lock region and seized handmade explosives, military binoculars, walkie-talkies, power generators, UV umbrellas, mortars, rocket launchers, sniper ammunition and living materials, Aktürk added.
