Turkey vows to keep attacking PKK in Iraq

Baghdad complains of repeated violation of its sovereignty

Turkey will keep striking Kurdish PKK fighters in northern Iraq, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, a day after Baghdad formally complained that repeated Turkish airstrikes violated its sovereignty and endangered civilians.

The Turkish military said on Friday it killed eight Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, prompting Iraqi authorities to summon the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad.

Turkey regularly hits PKK bases across its southern border, saying the militants use the remote and mountainous northern Iraqi region as a base for deadly attacks inside Turkey, where the outlawed group has waged an insurgency since the 1980s.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan threatened to launch a ground offensive in northern Iraq earlier this year.

“The activities of the PKK terrorist organization in the territory of Iraq and Syria have become a national security issue for Turkey,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said.

He said the government

in Baghdad had a duty to prevent Iraqi land being used as a base for attacks on neighbors, and described Friday’s airstrikes as an act of selfdefense which Turkey carried out because Iraq would not act.

“These operations in the fight against terrorism will continue as long as terror organizations nest on Iraqi soil and as long as Turkey’s security needs require it to,” Aksoy said.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU. It has waged a threedecade insurgency in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast that has killed about 40,000 people.

Ankara views the YPG as a “terrorist offshoot” of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party ( PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is considered a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

Kurdish militia

Erdogan has also announced an imminent operation against a Kurdish militia in neighboring Syria. The US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units ( YPG) militia, which has been fighting Daesh in Syria, controls Syria’s northeastern border with Turkey. Ankara says it is an extension of the PKK and poses a direct threat to Turkey.

Erdogan and US President Donald Trump on Friday agreed to “more effective coordination” between their countries’ operations in Syria, after Ankara threatened to launch a new offensive in the war-torn nation. The two leaders spoke after Erdogan warned of a fresh Turkish operation against a Syrian Kurdish militia that risks aggravating already strained relations, as the US not only supports the militia but has troops deployed alongside its fighters.

Trump and Erdogan “agreed to ensure more effective cooperation on the subject of Syria” during a telephone call, a Turkish presidential source said.

Erdogan on Wednesday said that Turkey was planning to launch a new offensive within the “next few days” against the YPG militia east of the Euphrates River in northern Syria. But the YPG has spearheaded the US fight against Daesh in Syria under the banner of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance.

During their phone conversation, Erdogan shared with Trump “Turkey’s legitimate security concerns caused by the presence and actions” of the Kurdish militia, the source said.

Earlier on Friday Erdogan said he is “determined to bring peace and security to areas east of the Euphrates” River in Syria’s north.

He also strongly criticized Washington’s support of the YPG, which has caused tensions between the NATO allies in recent years.

The Pentagon has warned that any “unilateral military action into northeast Syria by any party, particularly as US personnel may be present or in the vicinity, is of grave concern.”

Tensions have spiked in recent weeks after the US set up observation posts in the northeast Syria border region intended to prevent altercations between the Turkish army and the YPG.

Erdogan has slammed the plan, claiming that Turkey was not being protected from terrorists but “terrorists were being protected” from possible action by Turkey.

Adding to the heated debate, a Turkish soldier was shot dead by YPG forces on Thursday in the northern Syrian region of Afrin, according to Turkey’s Defense Ministry.

If Turkey does launch an operation east of the Euphrates, where US forces are deployed with the SDF, a point of contention will be the city of Manbij, just west of the river. American troops are also situated in the flashpoint city, which is controlled by the YPG.