BAGHDAD, Kurdistan Region— Iraq’s parliament has assigned its Defence and Security Committee to look into Tuesday’s Turkish airstrikes that left five Peshmerga soldiers killed on the Shingal Mountain near the Syrian border. The committee said it will present its initial findings on Thursday when the parliament will convene to discuss and possibly vote on its recommendations. The committee will ask the parliament to take action against “neighbouring countries’ activities” in Iraq and to put pressure on UN Security Council to stop Turkish attacks inside Iraqi soil, according to members of the committee. “We have two recommendations; that this must be the last Turkish attack in the Kurdistan Region; and that if the Iraqi government supports the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), they can move the group to the Qandil Mountain if they want to use them against Turkey,” said Shakhawan Abdulla a Kurdish member of the committee. The PKK has the brunt of its forces, around 5000 guerrilla fighters, in northern Qandil Mountains in remote areas along the Turkish borders. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has in the past urged the PKK to leave Yezidi areas including Shingal Mountain where tensions were running high after deadly clashes broke out between the PKK affiliates and KRG-backed Syrian Kurdish forces. “This incident and other future incidents along the borders of the Kurdistan Region are the outcome of PKK flawed policies and its insistence (to remain in the area) while we express our concerns regarding the (Turkish) attacks,” said a statement from the Provincial Council in Dohuk north of Kurdistan Region where Qandil Moutain is located. Kurdish officials have frequently accused Baghdad of funding armed groups affiliated with the PKK in disputed territories along the Syrian borders, a claim that Iraqi government has categorically rejected. Although not considered as allies of the Syrian regime, both Baghdad and PKK have maintained complex relations with Damascus over the past years. The Iraqi embassy in Damascus is still open while most other Arab countries have no diplomatic relations with Syria and Kurdish groups supported by the PKK in Syria have seldom been engaged in clashes against government troops. “We do not support the presence of the PKK or any other oppositional group in Iraq launching attacks against regional countries,” said Iraqi Shiite lawmaker Muhammad Jasim. “Turkey and Iraq should meet to find a way to expel PKK from Iraq. But at the same time, Turkey must refrain from intervening in domestic Iraqi politics,” Muhammad said. Turkey has a military personnel in Nineveh Plains near Mosul where Sunni militia have been trained and funded since 2015 despite Iraqi objections.
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