Defense Minister Yaşar Güler and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan addressed lawmakers on Tuesday at Parliament's General Assembly session that took place after a PKK attack that killed nine soldiers and injured four others in the Metina district near the Turkish border last Friday. Güler highlighted the efficiency of the counterterrorism operations. At the same time, Fidan called on countries where the PKK has hideouts to end their presence while complaining that the United States and Russia turned a blind eye to terrorists in Syria.
Türkiye today received no news of its soldiers being killed or its bases being attacked, showing the success of its strategy to eliminate terrorism at its roots, Güler told Parliament. Türkiye has been pounding on terrorist hot spots since Saturday in retaliation and has eliminated a total of 78 terrorists while destroying 114 terrorist targets in the north of Iraq and Syria, Güler informed.
Referring to the extensive presence of the PKK and its Syrian offshoot YPG along northern Iraq and Syria near the Turkish border, Güler urged Türkiye’s two southeastern neighbors not to allow terror groups on their territories and stressed Turkish operations “do not intervene in their sovereignty but aim to contribute to the international fight against terrorism.”
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned in his address that the terror group has become an even larger security threat for Syria and Iraq than for Türkiye, stressing that the PKK and YPG have gained a foothold there. “We continue our diplomacy in the fight against terrorism wholly aware of the PKK’s branches in several countries,” Fidan said.
He added that Türkiye was working to “dry out” the PKK’s source of finance, which comes from a vast network of members and supporters working globally to raise funds or trades in usurped Syrian oil. Finland’s new anti-terrorism steps after the trilateral agreement with Türkiye and Sweden while it was pursuing NATO membership last year also “caused discomfort among PKK circles,” Fidan noted.
Referring to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) political party in northern Iraq, which is under de jure control of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Fidan said Türkiye “will not hesitate to take further measures if the PUK refuses to change its supportive stance of the PKK despite Ankara’s steps toward Sulaymaniyah.” Türkiye often carries out operations in Sulaymaniyah and earlier accused the PUK of links to the terrorist group in the city.
In less than a month, the group killed 21 Turkish soldiers in the area where Ankara is conducting Operation Claw-Lock, which was launched in April 2022.
Türkiye’s military involvement in northern Iraq dates back over two decades, separately from its operations against the PKK, and also included the war against Daesh, which controlled much of the area, in 2014 and 2015, when Ankara was an ally in the U.S.-led anti-Daesh campaign. The terrorist group has been more active in Syria after a civil war broke out more than a decade ago. YPG terrorists control areas near the Syrian-Iraqi border and unconfirmed reports say they travel between the two countries secretly.
In the last few years, Ankara’s intensifying operations in northern Iraq have demolished terrorist lairs in Metina, Avashin-Basyan, Zap and Gara districts but Baghdad is yet to officially recognize the PKK as a terrorist group and Turkish strikes remain a prickling issue between the neighbors.
Turkish officials have repeatedly urged Iraq, as well as the KRG, to recognize the PKK, stressing that the group, which occupies Sinjar, Makhmour, Qandil and Sulaymaniyah, threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq.
Ankara has also expressed readiness to collaborate with Baghdad against both the PKK and Daesh.
Fidan on Tuesday further slammed continued U.S. support for the YPG under the pretext of fighting Daesh and Russia for overlooking the PKK presence in the Manbij region of northern Syria.
Fidan was alluding to a deal between Ankara, Washington and Moscow, who promised to remove the terrorist group from Tal Rifaat and Manbij during Türkiye’s Operation Peace Spring in October 2019. But Russia has failed to uphold its commitments while the U.S. has maintained its material support to the YPG, which helped it become stronger in the region, particularly in resource-rich Deir el-Zour province.
