NEO-OTTOMANS: Turkey to intervene in Sinjar if Iraq doesn’t.
Turkey will launch an operation into Iraq’s northern Sinjar region if Iraqi forces do not fully carry out an operation, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has vowed, while an Iraqi military spokesperson said their army was deployed in the region controlled by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“Our hope is that Iraq will complete the operation there thoroughly. If there is a problem achieving this goal, we will conduct our bilateral meetings and be the ones who will do what is necessary in Sinjar,” Erdoğan said on March 26, speaking ahead of his trip to Bulgaria’s Varna for a summit with European Union leaders.
The PKK took control over Sinjar in 2015 after defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who took the region from the Yazidi minority community in 2014.
Sources in northern Iraq said on March 23 that the PKK would withdraw from the Sinjar area.
That attitude might ruffle a few feathers in Tehran, where the mullahs believe that bossing around Iraq is strictly their prerogative.
Related: Turkey’s ‘holy war’ in Syria puts a more religious nationalism on display.