The Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq constitute a haven for the PKK outside Turkey, which continues its military operations against it, in an effort to end and eliminate its armed activity.

And Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced that the bodies of 13 Turkish citizens had been found in the mountainous Gara region in northern Iraq, where the Turkish army was carrying out a military operation against the PKK.

Today, Tuesday, in a statement made to Parliament, Akar confirmed that the military operations carried out by his country's forces in northern Iraq "continue unabated," explaining that during Operation Eagle Claw-2 - in the Gara region - 53 militants, including two who were arrested, were neutralized. Biology.

In the summer of last year, Turkey carried out the "Eagle Claw-1" operation, which included intense air strikes on PKK targets in Sinjar, Qarjik, Qandil, Zab and Hakurk in northern Iraq.

Hulusi Akar: The operations carried out by the Turkish army in northern Iraq continue unabated (Anatolia)

Intervene in Sinjar

On 22 January, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country might intervene on its own to expel the PKK members from Sinjar district in northern Iraq.

Turkey maintains more than 10 military sites since 1995 inside Iraqi territory in Dohuk Governorate.

The Turkish Ministry of Defense said that the military operation in northern Iraq began with air strikes, and then it was followed by a ground operation carried out by soldiers that were dropped by helicopters in the region, and this is not the first operation of Turkey in the region, as it had previously carried out similar operations in the past against the PKK militants.

It is noteworthy that the PKK is classified as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, and has been engaged in an armed conflict in southeastern Turkey since 1984, and more than 40,000 people have been killed in this conflict.

A favorable environment

In the context, retired Turkish General Ismail Hakki mentioned that the Qandil Mountains constitute a major challenge for the Turkish forces due to their rugged terrain, as well as a political challenge that lies in the need to obtain support from Baghdad, Tehran and Erbil.

Haqqi emphasized that an external and internal environment was conducive to waging a war of eradication for the Workers' Party in light of the existence of a very large official and popular anger in Turkey after the killing of civilians. The Turkish defense and interior ministers visited both the CHP president and the head of the good opposition party, and explained to them the details of the operation in order to mobilize support Opposition to a major military operation.

Armed forces of the PKK in Sinjar, northern Iraq (Reuters)

He pointed out that the Turkish army possesses large operational experiences, advanced weapons and high-level strategic capabilities accompanied by an advanced information and intelligence system, which means that the Turkish military might fluctuate expectations at any moment.

From Istanbul, the Iraqi journalist Ayman Khaled views the killing of Turkish civilians as a "clear challenge and test of Turkish patience in taking the decision of a deadly war against the Workers' Party in the Qandil Mountains."

Khaled told Al-Jazeera Net, "Baghdad is trying to maintain friendly and fruitful relations with Ankara, and it is unwilling to abandon this relationship that is based on political, economic and strategic frameworks. Therefore, it is closer for Baghdad to stand with Ankara to resolve the issue of confronting the PKK, provided that the confrontation is not prolonged."

He pointed out that the Iraqi decision suffers from a weak state, with the presence of ruling parties linked to the regional decision, most notably Iran, and this is an obstructive problem in addition to the weakness of the executive means for decisions made on the security situation.

New Old Conflict

Since its inception in the early 1980s, the PKK has been a thorn in the sides of successive Turkish governments.

The party, which was born in its beginnings with a Marxist ideology, has waged an armed struggle against the Turkish government since 1984, as part of its efforts to obtain an independent state for the Kurds in Turkey.

However, the Workers' Party retreated from its initial demand for the independence of the Kurdish regions inside Turkey, and became calling for the Turkish Kurds to obtain autonomy.

The party suffered a major moral blow in 1999 with the arrest and imprisonment of its leader Abdullah Ocalan in Turkey, and then resumed its armed campaign in 2004, which lasted until 2009 when secret peace negotiations began, after which the party announced a ceasefire.

However, those talks collapsed after clashes between Turkish soldiers and the PKK in June 2011, which resulted in the deaths of 14 Turkish soldiers.

Kurdish demonstrators raise a picture of Abdullah Ocalan during a demonstration in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, calling for his release (Reuters)

Ocalan demanded in 2013 a cease-fire, and urged the party to withdraw from the Turkish regions, in a declaration he described as "historic."

However, the ceasefire ended in 2015 when Turkey launched air strikes on the PKK camps in northern Iraq, then the party resumed its attacks on the security forces, the army and other targets inside Turkey, and it embarked on a new strategy of controlling Kurdish-majority towns in the southeastern regions. For the country.

Before the withdrawal that the PKK carried out in the spring of 2013 from southeastern Turkey under an agreement with the Turkish government, there were estimates that the number of its fighters in Turkey was within two thousand.

In 1997 it was estimated that the number of its members ranged between 10 thousand and 15 thousand, but this number decreased by the year 2002 to between 4 thousand and 5 thousand, most of them stationed in northern Iraq.

There are estimates that the number of PKK fighters currently in northern Iraq is close to two thousand.