Erdogan targets ‘terror HQ’ in Sinjar mountains ‘We will enter one night and clear it,’ Turkish leader warns Iraq
“We have told the central (Iraqi) government that the PKK is establishing a new headquarters in Sinjar,” the Turkish president said. “If you can deal with it, you handle it. But if you cannot, we will suddenly enter Sinjar one night and clear this region of terrorists.”
The PKK have waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state and are considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, Europe and the US.
For the past few months, Turkish and Iraqi officials have engaged in high-level political and military talks to discuss potential joint action against the PKK in Sinjar along the Iraqi-Syrian border.
Ankara has justified its previous operations against PKK hideouts in Iraq using Article 51 of the United Nations Charter on a country’s right to self-defense against armed attack.
Sinjar is strategically important because it unites the Kurdish areas in Syria with those in Iraq. The Syrian town of Afrin was captured by Turkish troops on Sunday in what it called Operation Olive Branch. Erdogan said Turkish forces and allied Syrian forces would press eastwards to Kobani, Manbij and Sinjar.
Barin Kayaoglu, an assistant professor of world history at the American University of Iraq, told Arab News a Sinjar operation was more likely after Afrin. “It would be prudent to take Erdogan and his administration at their word,” he said.
ANKARA: Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to “clear terrorists” from northern Iraq’s Sinjar mountains if Baghdad does not act on his warning that the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has set up a headquarters there.