“It is regretful that the Sinjar [Shingal] agreement is yet to be implemented, and the main reason behind it not being implemented is the presence of outlaw groups and PKK fighters in Sinjar, who have become a factor of instability in the area,” Reber Ahmed said in a press conference.
Ahmed’s statement comes just days after a suspected Turkish drone targeted the headquarters of Shingal Resistance Units (YBS) in Snune sub-district at least twice.
The Iraqi army has been attempting to re-control the Yazidi heartland of Sinjar, also known as Shingal, from the PKK-YBS since April 18. The YBS controlled parts of Sinjar months after it was invaded by the Islamic State (ISIS) militants in summer 2014. Clashes between the army and the all-Yazidi force escalated on May 2 and the following day, leading to the death of a soldier and a militant.
The tensions in May once again displaced Sinjar residents to the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province. Hundreds of thousands of them were displaced to the Kurdistan Region when ISIS attacked the district.
“Our people in the camps should no longer pay the price of the presence of outlaw groups in Sinjar,” Ahmed said.
The Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) signed an agreement in 2020 to “normalize” the situation in Sinjar, which includes the withdrawal of all PKK-affiliated forces from the city. Despite both the KRG and Iraqi government calling on all armed groups to leave Sinjar on several occasions, the agreement has been rejected by the PKK and its proxies.
The YBS are often the target of Turkish attacks. Ankara occasionally carries out such attacks against the YBS in Sinjar where several armed forces affiliated with the Iraqi government, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the PKK, and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) are present.
A military official of the YBS was killed in an airstrike by the Turkish army in the town in December.
Turkey considers the YBS to be an offshoot of the PKK, an armed group fighting for the enhanced rights of Kurds in Turkey. The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, which carries out regular military campaigns against the group at home and in northern Iraq, including in the Kurdistan Region.
