The terrorist organization PKK has been wiped out in Turkey. Now it is time to clear terrorist nests in northern Iraq. Before the big operation signaled by President Erdoğan, base areas will be fortified. A transportation network will be established between military bases. The organization will be cut off from settlements. After the creation of safe zones, the PKK is expected to descend to flat terrain. A joint operation with the Iraqi army is on the agenda for Qandil, Sulaymaniyah, Makhmur and Sinjar. MİT will simultaneously organize point operations against the ringleaders. The cornered PKK will be destroyed.
“We will complete the circle,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said after the cabinet meeting, signaling new operations on the borders of Iraq and Syria. The strategy to end the PKK is as follows: Base areas will be fortified before the operation. Steel-constructed base areas and watchtowers will be built. Transportation networks such as roads and bridges will be established between these base areas. Communication networks and power lines will be established and a line like the M4 Highway in Syria will be created.
WILL BE CORNERED
While creating safe zones, the aim is for the PKK to descend from mountainous areas to flat terrain. Thus, the PKK will be cornered and cleared. The organization will be cut off from the settlements in the regions where it is active and those regions will be taken under control. Operations together with the Iraqi army in Qandil, Sulaymaniyah, Makhmur and Sinjar, where the PKK is nesting, may be on the agenda. This operation will also be supported by point operations carried out by MİT against the terrorist organization’s senior executives. In this way, the terrorist organization’s back will be broken, its control will be weakened and it will be destroyed.
DIPLOMACY ACCELERATED
In order to remove the PKK from the agenda, Turkey has stepped up diplomacy for a solution on the table with its previous interlocutors. Turkey’s diplomatic traffic with Iraq started in December with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s visit to Iraq. The traffic continued at the beginning of this year with the visits of Yaşar Güler, the Minister of National Defense, and İbrahim Kalın, the head of the National Intelligence Organization. In recent weeks, an Iraqi delegation came to Turkey. President Erdoğan is planning to visit Iraq in April to finalize the issues discussed during the delegation meetings.
IF NOT AT THE TABLE, ON THE GROUND
In addition to Iraq, Turkey is also conducting diplomacy with the US, Russia and Iran against the PKK. Turkey, which primarily wants to solve the problem at the table with its interlocutors, will press the button to eliminate threats as soon as it realizes that diplomacy will not yield results. With the arrival of spring, a different strategy will be implemented in Iraq. In Turkey’s consultations with Iraq, the Iraqi side also expressed its discomfort with the terrorist organization PKK. In this context, the option of a joint operation with the Iraqi government and the Peshmerga is being evaluated. Turkey had carried out joint operations with the Peshmerga against the PKK in the late 1990s.
CONTINUE PEACE PINARI IF PROMISES ARE NOT KEPT
Turkey, which is conducting low-level talks, will not apply the same system in Syria as it did in Iraq. Talks are ongoing with the US on the west of the Euphrates and with Russia on the east of the Euphrates. During Operation Peace Spring in this region, Turkey had made an agreement with both Russia and the US by giving them a deadline. However, neither Russia nor the US kept their promises. Turkey will remind the US and Russia to stick to the text of the agreement. If the region is not cleared and secured, Turkey will complete the unfinished Operation Peace Spring for border security.
LOCKED DOWN, NOW IT’S TIME FOR CLEANUP
Operation Claw, which Turkey launched in 2019 to destroy PKK camps in northern Iraq, has largely achieved its goal. Clearing the Turkey-Iraq border from terrorists, the Turkish Armed Forces took control of a 370 km long line. Launched on May 27, 2019 in Hakurk, one of the so-called strongholds of the organization, Operation Claw was expanded to a large-scale area under the name Claw-Kilit as of April 12, 2021. In this process, PKK camps in Hakurk, Avaşin-Basyan, Zap, Zinnar, Metina and Haftanin were destroyed. While caves and tunnels were rendered unusable, the Turkish Armed Forces established many base zones and pushed the terrorists away from the Turkish border. Mountain commando brigades and special forces units searched the areas where PKK camps were located.
81 POINTS TARGETED
The first Operation Claw continued in the Bradost Mountains and the Hakurk line. The scope of the operations was expanded to Zaho-Barzan in the west of the region with Claw-2 and to the Haftanin region across the Şırnak-Uludere line with Claw-3. Operation Claw-Eagle targeted 81 points in Sinjar, Karacak, Qandil, Zap, Avashin-Basyan and Hakurk. After Operation Claw-Tiger, Turkish commandos were deployed in Haftanin. Metina and Avashin-Basyan regions were targeted in Operations Claw-Lightning and Claw-Thunder. Zap was added to these regions in Operation Claw-Kilit.
56 KM DEEP
The Turkish Armed Forces entered deep into Northern Iraq and conducted operations in the region with 12 battalions of soldiers. Advancing 36 kilometers deep into Amedya and 56 kilometers deep into Dohuk, TSK established base areas at every point it captured. TSK bases were established in more than 100 areas cleared from the PKK. With the Claw Operations, Turkey not only cleared the Turkish-Iraqi border from terrorism, but also took a scalpel to the PKK’s logistics and terror line extending from Syria to Iraq.
LOGISTICS LINE CUT
The Turkish Armed Forces, which cleared the region up to Qamishli on the Iraq-Syria border from PKK terrorists, went down to Zakho. After Turkey closed the PKK’s Iraq-Syria terror line about 4 months ago, the US came to the rescue of the organization, which was in a difficult situation. It was revealed that the US was transporting PKK terrorists from Syria to Iraq by helicopter. It was also determined by the security forces that the organization, which faced a staff shortage due to the prevention of terrorist transit, was trying to pass through urban centers to terrorist camps. Following Turkey’s decisive stance, the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government has increased its efforts to remove the PKK from Sinjar.
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