The flag of Kurdistan Communities Union, Koma Civaken Kurdistan KCK, the political wing of Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK. Photo: SM
QANDIL MOUNTAINS,— The political wing of Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK, the Kurdistan Communities Union KCK, said in a statement on Sunday that Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) response to last week’s deadly Turkish airstrikes would pave the way for legitimizing future attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan region.
The statement also condemned the official silence of the Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and other political parties about the airstrikes, which killed six people and wounded ten others.
The KDP-led KRG, which has close ties with the Turkish government, issued a statement on Saturday blaming the PKK for precipitating the situation. The KRG “will not tolerate or allow its soil to be used for attacking or stirring the security of neighboring countries which will put the lives of the Kurdistan Region’s people in danger,” it added.
“Turkey’s attacks on the civilians have increased, especially airstrikes, which have resulted in civilian deaths and people evacuating their homes,” the statement said.
“There is no excuse for the silence chosen by the South [Iraq] Kurdistan political parties and leadership regarding the murdering of South Kurdistan civilians by the Turkish government. Their silence creates doubts that they are people’s representatives.” the KCK statement said
The statement went on to say that KCK had “full intelligence that the South Kurdistan security apparatus is helping the Turkish MIT [intelligence service] to target the PKK guerrillas, but we will not permit them to do it and will take necessary measures about it.”
Turkey maintains a network of twenty-one bases in Duhok and Erbil governorates and has deployed units approximately 30 kilometers into the territory of Iraqi Kurdistan, some of which have come under attack from PKK fighters.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
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