Turkey Bombs the Kurds in Iraq and Syria
Nuray Lydia Oglu and Noriko Watanabe
Modern Tokyo Times
The armed forces of Turkey unleashed fresh military air strikes against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in North Iraq. This comes on top of recent air strikes in Syria in recent weeks by the armed forces of Turkey.
It is further evidence that Turkey can launch military air strikes and ground troops in North Iraq and North Syria – while continuing to occupy North Cyprus.
Hence, further evidence of non-Arabic speaking nations (America, Iran, Israel, the Russian Federation, and Turkey) dominating the essential military skies of West Asia (the Middle East) outside the Gulf Alliance bombing Yemen (Iran also heavily involved in Yemen). Therefore, Arabic-speaking nations – including Bahrain, Egypt (the Coptic Christian minority is indigenous), Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – need to address this issue along with other regional nations.
The armed forces of Turkey launched fresh air strikes this weekend against 15 PKK locations deemed a threat to Turkey. Attacks occurred in the region of Hakurk in Northern Iraq.
ABC News reports, “Turkey often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq that it believes to be affiliated with the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s. Meanwhile, security agencies in Iraq continue to crack down on Islamic State group sleeper cells.”
AFP reports, “Since 2016, Turkey has carried out successive ground operations to expel Kurdish forces from border areas of northern Syria, and has made threats of a new incursion.”
Mazlum Kobane (Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces) said, “The Turkish president’s statement naming the war that leads to cutting off water, electricity, and roads and destroying infrastructure, places of worship and schools as ‘massacres’ is exactly what his government is doing in northeast Syria. Turkish occupation commits ‘massacres’ and war crimes every day.”
Voice of America reports, “Turkey regularly carries out airstrikes in northern Iraq and has sent commandos to support its offensives as part of a long-running campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants of the Kurdish PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Ankara regards both as terrorist groups.”
The conflict between Kurds and the central state of Turkey goes back many decades.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria said, “Terrorism in Syria is made in Turkey.”
The conflict between Turkey and the Kurds internally – and externally – will continue militarily, politically, and based on utilizing forces opposed to the Kurds in Iraq, Iran, and Syria for the foreseeable future.
Lee Jay Walker says, “However, unlike the Palestinian Question, the Kurdish Question (the Kurds are the largest stateless people in West Asia) doesn’t receive the same international attention. Hence, Turkey is boosted by this dynamic.”
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