Apr 19, 2017

Having announced the end of Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria on March 29, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shortly thereafter declared a pending new stage of the operation, but on Iraqi soil. Any such operation is expected to exacerbate the myriad conflicts in the area.

Erdogan announced the new operation in an April 4 television interview with the Anadolu Agency. Identifying Turkey's targets, he said, “There are the Tal Afar and Sinjar situations. We also have kin in Mosul.” The “kin” Erdogan referred to are Turkmens. During an April 7 TV interview, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu confirmed the government's plans for an Iraq campaign and explained Sinjar's importance. “The PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] wants to build its own camp in Sinjar, which we cannot allow,” he said. “We will undertake a [military] intervention, or they [PKK forces] will cross our borders to launch terrorist attacks.” No time frame has been publicly announced for the Iraq operation.

PKK forces entered Sinjar in 2014, after Islamic State militants attacked the area, which is inhabited primarily by Yazidis. The heavy presence of PKK forces in the area has caused disputes among Kurdish factions. In March, bloody clashes erupted between the PKK-affiliated Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) and the Rojava peshmerga affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and supported by Ankara. The PKK sees the clashes as being related to a visit to Turkey by KDP leader and Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani. Meanwhile, the KDP has accused Iran of supporting the YBS as part of its Shiite Crescent project.

Turkey already has military forces in Iraq, at Bashiqa, a situation that has caused tensions with Baghdad. Turkey claims the troops are there merely to help train fighters in prepartion for taking Mosul from IS. Baghdad claims they are violating Iraqi sovereignty and has called for their withdrawal. It appears that Turkey would need a comprehensive military invasion to drive the PKK from the Sinjar area, as airstrikes alone, which Turkey has conducted in the Qandil mountains against PKK targets, are unlikely to achieve Ankara's announced goal. It is possible that Turkey might use its forces in the Bashiqa camp to help do so.

The Bashiqa camp has been hemmed in to the south by Baghdad-controlled joint forces, as ordered by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, so the only way for Turkish forces in Iraq to reach Sinjar by land is to pass through areas controlled by the KDP. Would the KDP allow a foreign force to cross that territory to attack another Kurdish force?