ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkey summoned the Iraqi Charge d’Affaires to Ankara on Sunday, vowing in a Foreign Ministry statement to “resolutely continue” its Operation Claw airstrikes in the Kurdistan Region in defiant response to Iraqi government condemnation of a deadly airstrike last Thursday.
The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday issued a statement of “condemnation” of what it called a “unilateral act of war,” two days after a Turkish airstrike killed four people and wounded four more.
“While we are keen to establish long-term strategic relations and to prevent acts emanating from Iraqi territory against the security of neighboring Turkey, we believe that unilateral acts of war violate Iraqi sovereignty, contradict the principles of good neighborliness…and pose a serious violation of international humanitarian law,” the Iraqi MFA said.
Dubbing Iraq’s statement “unacceptable,” Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement that “Turkey resolutely continues cross-border operations against terrorists in Iraq.”
While Turkish airstrikes in the Region are not a new occurrence, they have been stepped up in recent weeks with the launch of Operation Claw, a large-scale operation aimed at disrupting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)’s logistical networks and isolating its Kurdistan Region headquarters in Qandil.
The PKK has been fighting for greater Kurdish political and cultural rights in Turkey for over four decades, much of which has been in the form of armed insurgency. A short-lived peace process began in 2013 before breaking down on July 20, 2015.
Despite the sophisticated weaponry in use, civilians in the Kurdistan Region continue to be caught in the cross hairs of Turkish missiles.
A day before Thursday’s casualties, a civilian was killed and another seriously injured after a Turkish airstrike in Bradost, northeastern Erbil province.
This is not the first time Iraqi political leaders have drawn Turkish ire. Earlier this month, vocal Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr condemned Turkish airstrikes, referring to the PKK as an “opposition force” – a remark met with condemnation by the Turkish ambassador to Iraq.
On Saturday, a group of 52 Iraqi MPs submitted a request to the Iraqi parliament speaker to force the discussion of Turkish airstrikes in Iraqi territory "in the presence of Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Prime Minister of Iraq, the Interior Minister, and other relevant ministers," Kawa Mohammed, a Kurdish MP from the Change Movement (Gorran) told Rudaw.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s response to airstrikes has been far less critical of Turkey, placing sole blame for the airstrikes on the PKK for “endangering the lives of villagers” living close to the epicenter of clashes at the Turkey-Iraq-Iran border.
Its sympathetic stance to Turkey was noted and employed by Aksoy in his Sunday rebuttal to Iraqi officials.
"The Iraqi statement does not refer to the PKK regarding the [Turkish] operation in Iraqi Kurdish Regional Administration [Kurdistan Region], while the KRG authorities held the PKK responsible in theirs,” Aksoy added.
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