In a television interview with al-Ahad TV Channel, former Iraqi prime minister and leader of the State of Law Coalition Nouri al-Maliki said Turkey is “eyeing” Iraq and the Region as it continues to “search for excuses” to target the area.
Widely seen as a step to regain power over areas previously controlled by the Ottoman Empire, Ankara launched a fresh military operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Kurdish mountainous area of Duhok province on April 18.
“They [Turkey] have said that in 2023 the parts looted from Turkey will be taken back, and that is Mosul. Mosul includes all of Kurdistan,” Maliki stated referring to the Treaty of Lausanne that set boundaries for modern Turkey 99 years ago, which has been widely criticized by the Turkish President.
Last year, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country is determined to enter 2023 as a “stronger, more independent, and more prosperous country economically, militarily, politically, and diplomatically.”
“The treaty ends in 2023, and this is what they mean,” Maliki added, emphasizing Turkey’s will to regain control of Iraqi and Kurdish territory.
Ankara has established an increasing number of bases and outposts in the mountains of Duhok province. It claims that its presence in the Kurdistan Region is aimed at cutting off the path of the PKK and to prevent them from crossing into the Kurdish areas of southeast Turkey, and attacking their security forces. Turkish operations are frequently launched against the group.
Designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, the PKK is stationed in the Region’s mountains and often clashes with Turkish forces.
“The PKK built its territory and headquarters in the Iraqi territory to face Turkey … the PKK is supposed to stop hitting Turkey so they do not use the act as a justification to target us,” Maliki said.
The Shiite leader views the situation as a “complex one” for Turkey, which has taken its assaults to further lengths than just targeting the PKK, as it has continuously bombards Kurdish and Christian villages, as well as civilian areas in Duhok.
Over three decades of PKK-Turkey conflict have turned more than 500 villages into ghost towns, empty, cold, and haunting.
Ankara last week claimed that the recently-launched operation was conducted with the support of the Iraqi and Kurdish governments. The former strongly rejected the allegations, calling them baseless. The latter, however, has not commented on the matter, with only the Peshmerga ministry denying their involvement in the offense.
However, Maliki believes that the Kurds are “not comfortable” with the presence of neither the PKK nor Turkey as the Region “honestly stated that they do not have the ability to confront both sides.”
Deadlock in Iraq’s political process
Almost seven months on since Iraq’s October elections, none of the political parties has been able to form a new government.
The war-wrecked country has a complex set of foreign interests that have crippled the political situation in the country, with Tehran being among its main influencers.
Almost all political players in the Iraqi scene have been around since the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, and have haggled with one another on numerous occasions. Their failure to reach an understanding of how to share power has made them vulnerable to even greater interference from Iran, Turkey, the Gulf States, and the United States.
“We told Iran we do not want anyone to interfere, and they did not,” Maliki said, noting that the current setback is witnessing a large regional intrusion that the former governments lacked, putting Iraq at its highest level of foreign interference.
Maliki admitted that this external interference has always existed but it is currently at its peak.
“The Turkish interference by leaps and bounds … the clear and intense Emirati intrusion which has given them authority over some political bodies … it is an interference of orders, do this and do not do that, continue without the Shiites, do not go further until the Shiites reach an agreement,” Maliki stated in the description of the slow-paced political process in Iraq.
The Shiite groups and Kurdish parties have found it difficult to find a middle ground following the elections. They were later divided between Save the Homeland Alliance, which consists of the Sadrist bloc, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the Sunni parties, versus the Iran-backed Coordination Framework alongside the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Maliki is among the top leaders of the framework.
The current political stalemate in Iraq is seen as being rooted in disagreements between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) on having a mutual presidential candidate. There have been three failed attempts at electing the head of state.
