current turkish armed conflicts around the world

By the mid-1990s, portions of this border belt-which the Turks dubbed the “Temporary Danger Zone”-had been expanded to ten miles.Īfter Saddam withdrew his forces from the north in 1991, the local Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) could not prevent seasoned PKK cells from establishing bases deeper inside Iraq. At times, Saddam Hussein’s government gave tacit approval for Turkish operations up to three miles inside Iraq.

Most of these strikes were launched in response to particularly painful PKK attacks that succeeded in killing soldiers or police personnel inside Turkey.

In 1983, Turkey began conducting ground incursions and other cross-border operations against bases in northern Iraq belonging to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a Turkish militant group designated as a terrorist entity by Ankara, Washington, and other governments. Why Has Turkey Been Operating Inside Iraq? If the present trajectory continues, it risks endangering multiple U.S. The main beneficiaries of the clashes may be Iran-backed militias, who welcome having Turkey as a new rationale for so-called “resistance” ( muqawama) attacks outside the framework of the Iraqi state. They were also the most recent incidents in a conflict that has spanned decades, largely out of sight, and is now escalating quantitatively and qualitatively.

Both actions were taken in retaliation for a July 20 Turkish artillery strike that killed nine Iraqis and wounded thirty-three in the Kurdistan Region resort of Parakh. On July 27, Iraq lodged a complaint against Turkey at the UN Security Council, and Iraqi militias fired rockets at the Turkish consulate in Mosul. Ankara is fighting a lethal and largely hidden counterinsurgency against PKK elements across the border, but the conflict’s rising profile may carry high costs for both U.S.

Current turkish armed conflicts around the world