“We are about to complete the circle that will secure our Iraqi borders,” said Erdogan following the Turkish government’s weekly cabinet meeting in Ankara.
“This summer, we will have permanently resolved the issue concerning our Iraqi borders,” he added.
Erdogan also called on everyone in the region to respect Ankara’s security strategy, “Otherwise, they will be the cause of the tensions that will arise,” he said.
Last month, Erdogan said that Ankara will take more “effective measures” towards securing its southern border and will have “largely completed fortifications” in the Kurdistan Region’s mountainous areas in the summer.
"During the summer months, we will have largely completed our fortifications in the Operation Claw region, allowing us to take far more effective measures," Erdogan said at the time.
Operations Claw are a series of military operations by the Turkish army in the mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region targeting positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), aiming to eradicate the group. The first iteration of Operation Claw was launched in May 2019 and was then followed by Operation Claw-Tiger in 2020. The third iteration of the offensive, launched in April 2021, consisted of two simultaneous cross-border campaigns, a ground campaign, and an air campaign, dubbed Operation Claw-Lightning and Operation Claw-Thunderbolt. A year later, Turkey launched Operation Claw-Lock.
Turkey has recently upped its attacks against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region. It has also intensified its targeting of Kurdish fighters in northern Syria due to their alleged ties with the PKK.
Kurdish civilians and rights organizations have criticized Turkey’s military campaign as civilian lives and property are frequently caught in the crossfire.
In late February, the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a human rights organization that monitors Turkey’s operation in the Kurdistan Region, told Rudaw that Ankara has conducted 1548 attacks in the Region in 2023.
