Mideast: Turkey, Aggressions In Northern Iraq and Kurdistan, and the Minorities Caught in the Crossfire
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Turkey has a complex relationship with Iraqi Kurds and the Kurdish regional government. Recently, unprecedented ground and air offensives have resulted in a ramping up of the conflict.
Turkey has had a long history of conducting airstrikes in Northern Iraq and the Kurdistan region. And more recently it has conducted air and ground offensives that have resulted in significant casualties and has called into question how much sovereignty the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has over its land in Northern Iraq and what exactly Turkey’s goals in the region are. The geopolitical implications of Turkish aggression’s lie in a complex relationship Turkey has with Kurdish groups in the region: namely Iraqi Kurds, Syrian Kurds, and Turkish Kurds. Its main goal in the conflict is simple however, to prevent the inception of a Kurdish state bordering Turkey and susceptible to causing problems for the Turkish state and its geopolitical interests in the Middle East. Perhaps the most important and telling is their relationship with the latter sort of Kurds and with a group by the name of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, abbreviated as PKK after its name in Kurmanji Kurdish.
Turkey and the PKK
The Kurdistan Worker’s Party was founded in 1974 by Abdullah Öcalan and has sporadically since assuming military functions engaged in numerous campaigns against the Turkish state for the purpose of Kurdish independence. A designated terrorist group by Turkey, the United States, and some other entities, the PKK has had a tumultuous relationship in the region which has of course leaked over into countries bordering Turkey, notable Iraq and Syria. Since clashes in 2015, 5001 people have been killed as a result of Turkish-PKK conflict, many of which have occurred in the areas bordering Iraq and Turkey. The PKK was a source of tension during a notable incident in 2019 when US President Donald Trump allowed US forces to leave Syria, allowing the Turkish state to take control of Kurdish controlled Syrian land, purportedly allied with Öcalan and the PKK. In Iraq, the PKK uses Northern Iraq and its mountains as a base much to the chagrin of the KRG and Iraq’s central government. PKK rebels have through guerilla tactics and ties to Iran been able to sustain a presence in Kurdistan which have now been threatened to a greater degree by Turkey’s ramping up of a campaign against them.
Turkey and the KRG
Turkey has a complex and everchanging relationship with the KRG, whom at various times since the inception of the Kurdish Regional Government have had economic ties especially when it comes to energy and have maintained friendly relations. Relations between the KRG, previously really the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), were friendly in the hopes that pursuing dialogue with Iraqi Kurds would secure support against Turkey’s PKK problem. Turkey has always regarded the KRG with suspicion however, owing to their own autonomy claims in Iraq. Turkey opposed the 2017 referendum on Kurdish independence in Iraq but the KRG has made efforts post-referendum to cultivate ties with Turkey on account of their mutual interests when it comes to economic matters and even anti-PKK sentiments, which the KDP has had a rival relationship with in the past.
Impact on Minorities in Northern Iraq/Kurdistan
A tragic consequence of Turkey’s assault in Northern Iraq are the minority groups caught in the middle. Often missing from discourse on the Kurds and Iraqi Kurdistan is the position of minority groups such as Yezidis, Chaldo-Assyrians, and Turkmens. Indeed, these minority groups have a complex and often adversarial relationship with the Kurdish Regional Government. The Yezidis were abandoned by the Kurdish Peshmerga in Sinjar during the genocidal attacks inflicted by ISIS in 2014. The Chaldo-Assyrians, an umbrella designation for Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Syriacs who share a common heritage, has equally been abandoned by Kurdish forces and have also seen their land usurped and destabilized by the KRG who have made it nearly impossible for the indigenous Chaldo-Assyrians to continue living the region. The Turkmen have also had their fair share of grievances against the KRG, whom they see as usurping their own land in Kirkuk, which they view as majority Turkmen and should not be subsumed into the Kurdish Region.
Turkey’s aggressions have put a further strain on these communities, especially those living in borderlands. Turkey has been bombing Chaldo-Assyrian villages under the pretext that they are looking for PKK militants. They have bombed villages in Zakho and several Chaldo-Assyrians have gone missing or have been confirmed to have killed, including the tragic case of Hurmuz and Simoni Diril, a Chaldean couple caught in the crossfire between Turkey and the PKK. For Yazidis, a similar pattern of being caught in the middle is present, exemplified by airstrikes that continue to be conducted in Sinjar, the main settlement for Yezidis.
Turkish aggression in Northern Iraq and its fight with the PKK brings trouble to a myriad of communities, not least of which are minorities who are once again threatened in a volatile region where they play little to no role in. Turkey’s aggression will not cease until either the PKK is completely dismantled or if it can find a more sustainable campaign and strategy in the region. But nevertheless, such a conflict damages the territorial integrity of Kurdistan and Iraq and the diverse population of the country. As long as the PKK uses Northern Iraq as a battling ground against Turkey for its nationalist aspirations it will continue to threaten those living in Iraq and in border areas who have no stake in the conflict and wish only that they are able to live without the threat of being caught in another altercation between the two.
