As indicated, Turkey has significantly stepped up its operations at least 30 kilometers deep into Iraqi territory, building now not temporary, as before, but permanent concrete outposts, as if it had already annexed territory south of the Turkish-Iraqi border.

The Kurdish villages in the area are almost empty, many places there resemble a war zone, with bullet casings, explosions in buildings and the rumble of Turkish drones in the air, Sararo village mayor Abdulrahman Hussein Rashid told an international publication. agency. “They have drones and cameras that work 24 hours a day. They know everything that’s going on,” he said from a village just 5 kilometers from the border.

Outposts of the Turkish army in Iraq are now growing like mushrooms after rain. If before 2019 there were 29 of them, now it is believed that their number has reached 87, that is, they have tripled in four years, while many of them actually function as bases for the Turkish army to clean up attacks against Kurdish militants.

The zone of Turkish control inside Iraq is 30 km deep and 150 km wide along the Turkish-Iraqi border. In other words, this is – roughly speaking – the de facto occupied territory of Iraq with an area of ​​4,500 square kilometers, that is, the same amount as all of Corinthia and Argolis combined.

Of course, there are not only watchtowers, cameras and drones here. Armored vehicles are also deployed and operated by many soldiers who receive daily supplies from Turkey via helicopters.

Asked to comment on its bases in Iraq, Turkey’s defense ministry said its operations there are in line with Article 51 of the UN Charter, which gives member states the right to self-defense if attacked.

“Our fight against terrorism in northern Iraq is being conducted in coordination and close cooperation with the Iraqi authorities,” the ministry said in a statement, declining to answer questions about evidence of a large Turkish presence and activities reported by Kurdish and Iraqi officials. . . .

In Iraqi Kurdistan, which Saddam Hussein has left to Turkish appetites since the 1990s, there has also been an official Turkish base in Basik, 80 kilometers from Iraqi territory, for many years. The Turks say the base serves to train and equip Iraqi soldiers to fight the Islamic State (ISIS).

Possible consequences

The creation of Turkey on the increasingly empty border with Iraqi Kurdistan does not attract the international attention that its incursions into Syria or the battle against the Islamic State have provided. But an escalation there risks further destabilizing the region, where foreign powers intervene with impunity, analysts told Reuters.

Kurdish officials say Turkey could intervene even more if its new bases come under sustained attacks, and its growing presence could also prompt Iran to expand military operations in Iraq against groups it accuses of fomenting domestic unrest.

In addition, pro-Iranian militias in Iraq have an excuse to react to Turkey’s presence, analysts say, raising the possibility of escalation between Turkish forces and groups other than the PKK.

Hamdi Malik, an expert on Iraqi Shiite militias at the Washington Institute in the US, says pro-Iranian groups such as Liwa Ahrar al-Iraq (Free Iraqi People’s Brigade) and Ahrar Sinjar (Free People of Sinjar) renamed themselves last year. resistance to Turkish presence in northern Iraq.

If these groups, deeply hostile to Washington, step up their operations, they will also undermine the influence of the United States and its 2,000 troops in Iraq, said Mustafa Gurbuz, a researcher at the Arab Center in Washington.

“Turkey underestimates both the strength of the resistance and the fact that these facilities will become increasingly vulnerable in the future as hostilities escalate,” said Sajjad Jiyad, an analyst at The Century Foundation, an American think tank in Baghdad.

Haryam Mahmoud, a leading figure in the Kurdistan Liberation Movement, an organization of Kurdish militias in Iraq that is (at least) ideologically linked to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, said no matter how much Turkey persecutes them, they will continue to resist.

“In our opinion, this is an occupation and militant resistance is a legitimate right,” said Mahmoud, who lives south of Sulaymaniyah.

In other words, it is an open wound and no one is interested in closing it.

Source: Reuters.