ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi army on Saturday attempted to surround and enter Makhmour Camp in Erbil province, according to local sources. The camp houses thousands of refugees from Kurdish areas of southeast Turkey and is controlled by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Footage shared by the camp's administration and PKK-affiliated media online shows a large force of the Iraqi army gathered near the camp with armored vehicles. The army's presence angered residents, who staged a sit-in near the perimeter of the camp to prevent the army from advancing.
"They came to the camp with their tanks and artillery and frightened our children. What crime have we committed? That we have fled from the oppression and tyranny of the occupying Turkish state?" PKK-affiliated Rojnews quoted a camp resident saying.
The Iraqi army is trying to forcibly enter the camp with a large military force. https://t.co/a5oNWdu0fN
— Makhmour Refugee Camp (@MakhmourCamp) May 20, 2023
Makhmour Camp hosts over 12,000 Kurdish refugees from southeast Turkey (Bakur). The majority of the residents come from villages depopulated during Turkey’s conflict with the PKK. The camp is located in a security vacuum disputed between Baghdad and Erbil and has several times been hit by Turkish air and drone strikes targeting alleged PKK members. Civilians have been killed in the strikes. Ankara believes the PKK uses Makhmour Camp as a training ground with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2021 calling it an “incubation centre for terrorism.”
Rudaw English reached out to Iraq's top military spokesperson Yehia Rasool but he did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The PKK is an armed group fighting for Kurdish political and cultural rights in Turkey. It has its headquarters in the Kurdistan Region’s mountains. The Turkey-PKK conflict has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and the group is listed as a terrorist organization by Ankara.
Turkey has many times called on Baghdad to take action against the PKK.
Last year, a senior Iraqi security advisor said the Iraqi government was making preparations to take full control of Makhmour Camp, which he said Baghdad lost control of when the Islamic State (ISIS) swept through vast swathes of northern Iraq in 2014.
"I think Makhmour Camp, which holds Kurdish families of the PKK, is an inherited issue. Iraq in the new era, or post-2003, has inherited several issues which date back to before 2003," Saeed al-Jayashi, security advisor at the Iraqi National Security Advisory, told Rudaw at the time.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani last month said that armed groups like the PKK abused a security gap created after the 2003 US invasion to launch attacks on neighboring countries from Iraqi territory.
Last July, the Iraqi foreign ministry labeled the PKK as "one of the heavy and tragic legacies left by the toppled Baath regime" and called it an "imported" issue from Turkey.
A Turkish military operation in February 2022 targeted a number of areas on the Iraq-Syria border, as well as Makhmour Camp. According to the Turkish defense ministry, the operation sought to target PKK bases.
