Makhmour Camp hosts over 12,000 Kurdish refugees from southeast Turkey (Bakur). The majority of the residents came from villages depopulated during Turkey’s conflict with the PKK decades ago. The Kurdish group has been in control of the camp for a long time.
The PKK said in a statement reported by its media on Thursday that it had withdrawn all its fighters from the camp, adding that they had been deployed to the area in 2014 to protect it from the Islamic State (ISIS) which had taken control over swathes of Syrian and Iraqi land.
“Our patriotic people and the public should know that our forces have fulfilled their mission and there is no longer any need for them to continue their mission there,” read the statement, clarifying that no one had demanded their withdrawal and they left the camp “solely on the basis of an independent decision by our movement.”
The Kurdish group noted that they had already withdrawn their forces from Kirkuk and Shingal in northern Iraq as well as Kobane in northern Syria in 2018. “This withdrawal happened publicly in some areas and secretly in others due to security issues. We completed this process by withdrawing our units from Makhmour in a secure manner.”
The camp is located in an area disputed between Baghdad and Erbil and therefore characterized by a security vacuum. It has several times been hit by Turkish airstrikes targeting alleged PKK members. In some of these instances civilians were killed. Ankara believes the PKK uses Makhmour Camp as a training ground, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling it an “incubation centre for terrorism” in 2021.
The PKK is an armed group struggling for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey but is proscribed as a terrorist organization by Ankara. It has bases in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Turkey considers Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria to be offshoots of the group.
Murat Karayilan, a senior PKK commander, said in a video message on Thursday that they have handed over the camp to its young residents.
PKK-linked media reported that the Iraqi troops have been stationed in areas evacuated by the group.
In Makhmur Refugee Camp, the points that the PKK forces evacuated, the Iraqi forces are stationed#Mexmûr#MakhmourCamp pic.twitter.com/YanDO9glwf
— Makhmour Refugee Camp (@MakhmourCamp) October 19, 2023
The Iraqi army unsuccessfully attempted to take over the camp in May.
