Turkish military operation against Kurdish rebels in Iraq: weak reactions from Baghdad

PKK fighters on a road in the Qandil Mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan on June 22, 2018 (illustration image). AFP PHOTO / SAFIN HAMED

Text by: Lucile Wassermann

After the "Eagle Claw" air operation launched earlier this week, the Turkish army announced the start of the "Tiger Claw" operation on Wednesday: an air and land offensive in northern Iraq against the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK. Ankara invokes “self-defense” in the face of the “recent upsurge in attacks on police stations and military bases” in Turkey. On the Baghdad side, the reactions are weak.

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From our correspondent in Baghdad,

The gunfire echoes in northern Iraq, but in Baghdad as in Erbil, the silence is deafening. Since the start of the "Tiger Claw" operation launched by Ankara, no press release has been published by the central government, nor by that of the autonomous region of Kurdistan where the fighting takes place.

The Iraqi authorities had summoned the Turkish ambassador after bombings earlier this week, but the condemnation was timid and since then, radio silence on the side of Baghdad as well as of Erbil.

It must be said that the Kurdish parties do not respect the PKK, perceived as a brother-enemy, whose military bases escape their control. No question anyway for the PDK, in power in these northern regions, to fall out with Turkey with which it maintains very good commercial relations.

► Read also: Iraq: Turkey launches a vast military operation against the Kurdish rebels

On the Baghdad side, relations with the PKK are not more cordial: in 2017, the central government had even denounced the presence of these fighters as a "declaration of war".

It is difficult to imagine that this Turkish military operation was therefore planned without the agreement of the Iraqi authorities, according to experts. PKK officials have criticized the Iraqi government for not taking a firmer stand to denounce, they say, "  these interferences with Iraqi sovereignty  ".

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  • Iraq
  • Turkey
  • Kurds

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