On July 17, gunmen shot dead a Turkish consulate employee and a civilian in an Erbil restaurant in broad daylight. Another civilian wounded in the attack later died from his injuries.
This was the first time an on-duty Turkish diplomat has been assassinated since 1994.
No group or individual has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement on Thursday evening, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) confirmed the incident was a “premeditated terrorist attack”, but did not name the perpetrators.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu did not immediately point fingers. Asked whether he believed the likely culprits were PKK, he said Ankara is waiting for conclusive results from the investigation before determining responsibility without a doubt.
Hours after the attack, Turkish state media outlet TRT World citied sources who said the PKK was likely behind the attack.
If the speculation proves correct, it could have far-reaching consequences.
The PKK denies it was behind the attack and also said it “has no information” about it.
Nevertheless, Turkey once again bombarded the PKK in Qandil Mountain on Friday, seemingly blaming the group for the killing of its diplomat.
"Following the evil attack in Erbil, we have launched the most comprehensive air operation on Qandil and dealt a heavy blow to the terror organization," said Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar.
Turkey has shown its improved capabilities in assassinating senior PKK officials over the past year. In August 2018, the Turkish Air Force assassinated Zaki Shingali in a targeted airstrike, the first such incident where Turkey proved it could carry out such an assassination. The only military in the region with this proven capability hitherto was Israel.
On March 21, Turkish airstrikes killed five senior PKK officials, including the spokesperson for the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) umbrella group Serhat Varto. PKK-affiliated media confirmed their deaths on Wednesday, the same day the Turkish diplomat was shot dead.
Then, on July 7, Turkey assassinated another senior PKK official, Diyar Ghareeb, in the group’s Qandil Mountain stronghold.
From the get-go, it was clear that Turkey’s game-changing assassinations of PKK leaders over the past year could lead the organization to retaliate in kind, which could further escalate the conflict, making it far more dangerous and destructive.
Given the PKK’s numerous allegations against the KRG, especially its claim that it is actively collaborating with Turkey against it, assassinating a Turkish official in broad daylight in Erbil could be the PKK’s way of sending a message to both the KRG and Turkey that neither are immune from retaliatory attacks.
A PKK attack of this kind in the Kurdistan Region capital, where such violence is extremely rare, could unwittingly end up fostering close cooperation between the KRG and Turkey against it.
Furthermore, if the PKK is proven without a doubt to have been behind the attack, Turkey could in turn exert more pressure on the KRG to directly cooperate with its operations against the group and apply more pressure on it in other ways.
When Iraq’s flight ban on the Kurdistan Region was lifted in March 2018, Turkey permitted flights to return to Erbil Airport but did not end its ban on flights going to Sulaimani Airport. This was because it claimed the PKK were active in Sulaimani, where PKK operatives kidnapped Turkish MIT agents in the province in August 2017, leading Turkey to expel officials of the area’s ruing Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) from Ankara.
The PUK, in late 2018, consequently closed several political offices affiliated with the PKK in a clear gesture to Ankara that it was clamping down on PKK-related activities in its area.
It worked and Turkey ended the flight ban on Sulaimani shortly thereafter.
Ankara could similarly pressure the KRG to take similar actions against the PKK across the region in conjunction with its military offensives.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) has not directly clashed with the PKK for more than 20 years. The last major clash between the two was in 1997 when the party forcibly removed the PKK from Erbil during a major Turkish offensive, Operation Hammer, against the group’s strongholds in the region.
Since then, while the KDP has been uncomfortable with the PKK’s continued presence in the Kurdistan Region, it has avoided directly clashing with the organization. This is at least partially due to the aversion among the Kurdish population to conflict between Kurdish groups in light of the civil war fought between the KDP and the PUK in the 1990s.
Despite this, there is renewed speculation that the Peshmerga will directly assist Turkey in Operation Claw and help its forces remove the PKK from the Hakurk region, which would then be placed under Peshmerga control.
Turkish security sources cited by Al-Monitor claim that one goal of Operation Claw is the development of “permanent commerce” between Turkey and the Kurdistan Region. This, they hope, can be achieved by having Turkish and Peshmerga forces securing key roads in the Hakurk area to “help create a lucrative economic basin” there.
With the end of summer approaching and the snowy season close at its heels, it remains unclear how exactly this can be achieved anytime soon. It is worth noting that Turkish operations against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region almost always transpire in the summer months – the only significant exception being the brief February 2008 operation against the group.
While the KRG rarely expresses opposition to Turkish military operations against the PKK in the region – only calling for restraint when Kurdish civilians are killed by Turkish airstrikes – directly supporting them would up the ante and could well see the PKK strike KRG targets, or target Turkish nationals and officials in the region, in response.
The implications of this could be increased hostility or a confrontation between the Peshmerga and the PKK of a kind not seen in two decades.
Without a PKK claim of responsibility, and no definitive proof the group was behind Wednesday’s shooting, it is hard to predict what happens next. If the PKK is found to have been responsible, an already complex and protracted conflict could get a lot more complicated.
