Turkey bombs multiple sites in Kurdistan injuring children

[Anthea]

Turkey bombs multiple sites in Kurdistan

Turkey bombed at least three areas in the Kurdistan Region on Friday, injuring two children and killing hundreds of sheep. The attacks come just days after Turkey’s defense minister visited Iraq and the Kurdistan Region

Mohammed Sheikhzade is a villager living in Gri in Duhok’s Chamanke district, at the foot of Gara mountain near the border with Turkey. “Turkish warplanes bombarded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions today at 2:30pm. A bomb hit near our house, breaking the window glass. As a result, my brothers Salih, 10, and Islam, 15, were injured due to the broken glass,” he told Rudaw.

The mayor of Chamanke, Alend Amir, confirmed the bombardment and the injuries, saying “both injured people were moved to Chamanke Hospital and were given necessary treatment.”

Turkey’s defense ministry said in a statement Friday afternoon that they “neutralized” four members of the PKK in an airstrike in the Gara area of Duhok province. Ankara uses the word “neutralize” to denote death, injury, or capture of its adversaries.

Turkey launched a new air and ground military operation in the Kurdistan Region in mid-June last year, on the grounds of targeting alleged PKK positions. The ground operation was “successfully completed” in September but the air campaign still continues.

Two villages in the Haji Omran district of Erbil province, on the Iranian border, were also bombarded on Friday.

Abdulwahab Mahmoud, mayor of Haji Omran, told Rudaw that the eastern parts of Gundazhur village came under attack by Turkey. But the village “is usually empty during this season, so there were no casualties.”

Bardarukhaw village was also bombed, he confirmed.

In a third area, Turkish warplanes hit a barn in Chikan village in the Choman district of Erbil province, killing hundreds of sheep. In video submitted to Rudaw, the bombing appeared to take place near a busy road.

In a second statement, Turkey’s defense ministry claimed it "neutralized" three PKK fighters in the Khakurk region, referring to a broad area on Kurdistan Region's border with Turkey and Iran, including Haji Omran.

This week, Turkey’s defense minister Hulusi Akar visited Baghdad and Erbil. In his meetings with Kurdish and Iraqi leaders, he said Turkey will continue its fight against the PKK in Iraq.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/22012021

[Anthea]

Turkey intentionally targets civilians

The Turkish state is deliberately attacking civilian settlements in various parts of Kurdistan simultaneously

The Turkish colonial state is helpless in the face of the just and legitimate liberation struggle of the Kurdish people and resorts to all conceivable methods of destruction.

Unable to bring the Kurdish people to their knees, it is attacking the civilian population in an insane manner. Deliberate attacks on the civilian population and residential areas have taken place simultaneously in Til Rifat, Heci Umran, Berdesor, Gare and Metina.

The patriotic people of Kurdistan remain committed to their fundamental values and will provide the necessary response by increasing their struggle against the enemy occupiers

The statement listed the attacks on inhabited areas in Southern Kurdistan in the last days as follows:

On January 21, fighter jets bombed the area surrounding the village of Beşili in Metina region between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

On January 22, fighter jets bombed the areas of Hecî Umran and Berdesor in Xakurke region six times. Local people’s stables were destroyed and animals killed as a result of the attacks.

Also on January 22, the village of Girê in the Meyrokê area of Gare was bombed. Four people were injured in the attack, including two children, while residential houses and gardens of the people were damaged. The attack was claimed to be directed against “PKK positions”; in fact, it was an attack on civilians living in Southern Kurdistan. There are no guerrilla positions in the vicinity of the village, nor did the guerrillas suffer any casualties in the attack.

On January 23, the area surrounding the village of Kanî Sarkê in Gare region, the Hakkari Hill and the area surrounding the village of Beşili in Metina region, and the Sida area in the Zap region were bombed.

[Anthea]

Turkish charm offensive for a new war

The Turkish government is currently trying something that it did not succeed at in 2009

It woos its international partners with offers for closer cooperation, promises domestic reforms and thus gives the impression of a democratic new beginning. Exactly the same promises made in 2009 resulted in a massive wave of arrests, particularly against Kurdish political activists - around 10,000 people were arrested in the context of the so-called `KCK trials' - and increased military operations against the Kurdish HPG guerrillas. The same can be expected for 2021. This is indicated by a wide variety of current developments.

For several weeks, calls for a ban of the HDP in Turkey have been growing louder

Driven by the staunchly nationalist MHP - government partner of the AKP - the HDP is currently equated with terrorism and demanded to put an end to it for the benefit of Turkey. Neither the opposition parties such as the CHP or Iyi Parti, nor Erdogan's AKP raise public objections. In connection with the widespread assumption that the presidential elections scheduled for 2023 in Turkey could be brought forward, a ban of the HDP can be expected this year.

Former AKP cadres such as Davutoglu - Turkish foreign minister during the renewed escalation of the war against the Kurdish population in 2015 - and Ali Babacan have been positioning themselves with their newly founded parties for some time. Their pro-Kurdish rhetoric - known from Erdogan at the beginning of his term in office in 2002 - aims to fill the void that would arise in the political landscape as a result of an HDP ban in new elections.

Since 2019, the Turkish government has taken offensive steps in Libya and around Cyprus, which represent a serious provocation for the EU and especially its member states in the Mediterranean region. Turkey has relocated thousands of Islamist mercenaries, hundreds of Turkish soldiers, heavy military equipment and drones to Libya and thus decisively escalated the war there.

In the waters around Cyprus too, attempts were made to create facts through the use of Turkish gas exploration ships accompanied by warships of the Turkish Navy. After the initial war propaganda and thunderous threats from Turkish government representatives, the tone has now become quite different. Turkey is now ready to negotiate again with Greece. At the same time, Turkey is trying to join an alliance between Israel, Greece, Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates in the dispute over the exploitation of the gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean.

So here too there has been a lot of talk recently about negotiations and cooperation. In Libya, all the Turkish weapons and the Islamists deployed have not been able to prevent Turkey from playing a decisive role in finding a political solution in the country, particularly thanks to successful Egyptian and French diplomatic efforts. Accordingly, it has become correspondingly quiet in the Turkish palaces with regard to this topic.

It would be wrong to consider the current Turkish charm offensive a real change in strategy. It is just as wrong to claim that Turkey is acting from a position of strength because of its numerous provocations in Libya, the Mediterranean, Armenia and northern Syria. Turkey's strategic agenda continues to be the occupation of the area from Aleppo to Kirkuk - and thus the restoration of old Ottoman areas of power within the framework of the Misak-ı Millî (Turkish political manifesto after the First World War with the aim of annexing northern Syria and northern Iraq into the territory of the at that time newly emerging Turkish nation state).

Central to the implementation of these plans is the smashing of the Kurdish resistance - including the peoples allied with them, e.g. in North and East Syria - and their most strongly organized force, the PKK. Since Turkey knows very well that it is too weak to do this on its own, it is currently trying to gain the necessary international support in a kind of desperate attempt.

Hence their current charm offensive. Erdogan, his government and the Turkish state apparatus are currently trying to win the support of the EU and the USA for something very concrete with the help of nice words and practical concessions in Libya and the eastern Mediterranean: a large-scale military operation in South Kurdistan (northern Iraq) this winter/spring.

At the regional level, Turkey has the support of South Kurdistan's KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party). After the recent visit by the Turkish Defense Minister, the Chief of Staff and the head of the MIT secret service to Baghdad on January 18, it looks as if the Iraqi government has refused to give the green light to the Turkish occupation of northern Iraq.

Turkey will therefore seek European and American political and military support all the more intensely in the coming days and weeks. Berlin is obviously more than ready for this. There is no other way of understanding the visit by the German Foreign Minister to Ankara on January 18 this year. And the British-Turkish free trade agreement, which was concluded at the end of last year, also points to close future cooperation between the two countries.

So the nice words from Ankara have an ugly goal: war in South Kurdistan. Against this, a great deal of resistance will develop in the region itself, which could drag South Kurdistan and Iraq into a chaotic whirlpool. Anyone who wants to prevent the huge human suffering associated with it and is not prepared to let their own government participate in such crimes will have to act. Because wars can only be waged if society does not prevent them.