Turkey’s intelligence organisation MIT “neutralised” the head of PKK’s special forces logistics, Nechirvan Seven, in an operation in the Gara area of the Kurdistan Region, Anadolu Agency reported Friday morning, citing security sources.
The day before, Anadolu reported a wanted PKK member was “neutralised” in an intelligence operation in the same area. Ahmet Gumus is accused of involvement in attacks on Turkey, training PKK “assassins,” and developing weapons systems for the PKK.
The PKK has not immediately commented on the claims, but accused Ankara of stepping up operations against them in the Iran-Iraq border region “with the purpose of spreading propaganda in the run-up to the elections” and advised against believing “fake news.”
On Tuesday, a local official said Turkey carried out two drone strikes in the vicinity of Galala village, near the Kurdistan Region’s border with Iran. “There were no casualties or material damage because the drones targeted two evacuated areas where there were not many people,” Mawat district mayor Kamaran Hassan told Rudaw. Video submitted to Rudaw showed smoke on the outskirts of the village.
The PKK is an armed group that for decades has fought for greater Kurdish political and cultural rights in Turkey. Ankara has designated it a terror group. The PKK called a unilateral ceasefire of operations within Turkey after the February earthquakes and extended it through to May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, when opposition parties are hoping to end two decades of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule.
Turkish forces frequently conduct air and ground operations against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region’s mountains where the group has its headquarters.
Baghdad has repeatedly condemned Turkey’s violations of its borders and called on armed groups not to use Iraqi territory to attack neighbouring nations. Civilians are frequently caught in the crossfire between Turkish forces and the PKK and hundreds of villages have been emptied with families moving in search of safety.
In a forum this week in Baghdad, Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari said that Iraq was beefing up security on its borders with Turkey and Iran.
On the Iraq-Turkey border, “there is a problem in holding it, as the border guards don’t hold the border strip, the zero-line specifically, but are stationed at a distance of 25 kilometres from it and have left an area that has become an area of operations for the Turkish army and the [Kurdistan] Workers’ Party,” said Shammari.
The government has allocated 72 billion dinars for building roads in order to access the rugged frontier and to form border guard units, according to the minister.
Baghdad is also coordinating with Ankara “to close the border completely, through border posts on the Iraqi side and the Turkish side holding its area and preventing the infiltration of PKK elements between Turkey and Iraq, in addition to the agreement with the Kurdistan Region for Peshmerga forces to hold the current points that are not located on the border strip,” Shammari said.
Speaking at the same forum, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani addressed the Turkey-PKK conflict, saying, “We have to be realistic and the reality is Turkey has some security concerns that are necessary for Iraq to keep in mind… We must not become a source of threats for our neighbouring country… If it wasn’t for the PKK presence on the borders, why would Turkey attack?”
“An armed group from inside Iraq, from inside the Kurdistan Region, should not be able to go and conduct a military operation in Turkey and then return to the Kurdistan Region,” he said.
