ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The residents and officials of Duhok province’s border areas have called for the unity of all Kurdish sides, a member of a joint Iraqi and Kurdish parliamentary committee that investigates the Turkish conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Kurdistan Region told Rudaw on Sunday.
“Their main demand was to try to unite the Kurdish sides, and to make efforts to secure our rights and a resolution to our issues with one voice,” Balambo Kokoy, a Kurdish MP in the delegation told Rudaw on Sunday, explaining that they have talked to the border residents, administrative and government officials.
The parliamentary delegation visited Duhok province on June 8 and 9 to speak with officials, including the Duhok governor, and the border areas to speak with villagers, measure losses and also understand the reasons behind the Turkey-PKK conflict.
Kokoy estimates that Turkey has advanced between 15 and 45 kilometres into the Kurdistan Region, and has established more than 70 military and security bases along its borders. “If Turkey stationed these military and security bases on its borders, they could easily protect their borders and they wouldn’t need to attack the Kurdistan Workers’ Party on the Kurdistan Region’s land,” explained Kokoy.
He also said that Turkey has used the PKK “as an excuse for its attacks” and criticized Turkey’s designation of PKK as a terrorist organization as “baseless,” saying, “It’s apparent that Turkey has not been ready to provide the basic rights of the Kurdish nation, that’s why the Kurdistan Workers’ Party were forced to take up an armed revolution.”
The PKK is an armed Kurdish group fighting for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. Ankara considers it a terrorist organization and a threat to its national security. Turkish forces regularly pursue the PKK within the Kurdistan Region’s borders.
The parliamentary report, issued on July 7 to the leadership of Kurdistan Region’s parliament, lists five reasons for the conflict, one of them being the lack of Kurdish rights in Turkey in addition to geographic location and negligence of the Iraqi and international governments.
The delegation in the report also called on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to take steps against Turkey's military operations and asked the PKK “not to give the Turkish state” excuses to attack the Kurdistan Region.
Turkish armed forces launched Operations Claw-Lightning and Claw-Thunderbolt on April 23, targeting alleged PKK positions in northern Duhok province.
Scores of civilians have been killed and injured in decades of Turkish-PKK conflict in the Kurdistan Region. In the latest operations, one civilian was injured in early June around Duhok’s Kani Masi sub-district, in addition to several more injuries in May.
Tension has also broken out between Peshmerga and the PKK. Six Peshmerga died in what the Peshmerga ministry said was a PKK attack, charges the group has denied. Kokoy, in the Sunday interview, said it was not clear who was in the wrong because their delegation were not eyewitnesses and their only sources were Peshmerga commanders.
Additional reporting by: Sangar Abdulrahman
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