TURKISH TROOPS KILLED IN KURD CLASHES
▶ Iraq’s Kurdistan region offered a joint Kurdish-Iraqi deployment, with the participation of the US-led coalition
Eight Turkish troops and five Kurdish militants were killed in a clash yesterday near the border between northern Iraq and south-east Turkey.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s Kurdistan region offered to assist the central government to guard a strategic crossing into Turkey.
Turkey launched an operation supported by helicopters in search of more Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who tried to cross the border in Hakkari province’s mountainous Semdinli district, Reuters reported.
Six Turkish soldiers and two military security guards were killed in the fighting, while two soldiers were injured, said the army, adding that the military killed five members of the “separatist terror organisation”.
The PKK — designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the EU — launched a separatist insurgency in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
The Turkish military said the PKK fighters were “trying to benefit from the heavy fog and bad weather conditions” to launch an attack. Operations against the group in the southeast intensified after the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in 2015.
Hours after the Iraqi armed forces accused the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of delaying the handover to Iraq of control of the borders with Turkey, Syria and Iran, it offered a joint effort to assist at the Faysh Khabur crossing into Turkey, with the US-led coalition that was helping to fight ISIL.
The KRG said that the offer was part of a proposal made to Iraq’s central government on October 31.
Other points included a ceasefire on all fronts, continued co-operation in the fight against ISIL and a collaboration in disputed areas, which are claimed by both parties.
The KRG “continues to welcome a permanent ceasefire on all fronts, deconfliction and the start of a political dialogue” with Baghdad, it said.
Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi ordered economic and military retaliation after Iraqi Kurds in September voted for independence in a referendum, which Baghdad said was illegal.
Mr Al Abadi said that the Kurds must cancel the referendum’s outcome before any dialogue between the two could begin.
Iran and Turkey support his measures against the Kurds, fearing the drive for independence would spread to their own large Kurdish populations.
The joint deployment at the strategic Faysh Khabur crossing was meant “as a goodwill gesture and trust-building exercise that ensures a limited and temporary arrangement until an agreement is reached in accordance with the Iraqi Constitution”, the Kurdish government said.
Faysh Khabur is strategically important for the Kurdistan region because it is the point where its oil pipeline crosses into Turkey.
State oil marketer Somo said yesterday that Iraq expected to resume exports from Kirkuk to the Turkish city of Cehyan this month, using the Kurdistan pipeline.
Iraq’s entire land border with Turkey is inside the Kurdish autonomous region and has been controlled by the Kurds since before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Mr Al Abadi declared a pause on Friday in an offensive that began on October 16 to take over the disputed areas. Kirkuk fell on the same day without much fighting.
The Iraqi Joint Operations Command accused the KRG on Wednesday of using the talks that started on Friday to “buy time” to strengthen Kurd- ish lines. “We will not allow it. The federal forces are mandated to secure [the disputed] areas and borders,” it said.
The Kurdish Peshmerga command also accused Iraqi forces on Wednesday of massing weapons and threatening force to resolve “domestic political differences”.