Ankara to extend Iraq, Syria military mandate ahead of Kurdistan referendum

Alarmed by the Kurdish vote in Iraq and de facto autonomous Syrian Kurds' territorial expansion, Turkey in recent days began increasing its military presence on the border with both countries.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The Turkish Parliament was to convene on Saturday in an extraordinary session to extend a mandate that would allow the army to conduct cross-border operations in Syria and Iraq.

The Turkish move announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) comes as the Kurdistan Region gears up to hold a planned referendum on Monday to vote on secession from Iraq.

AKP’s deputy parliamentary leader Mustafa Elitas said the Prime Ministry proposed the mandate one week before the official opening of the assembly, reported the state-funded Anadolu agency.

Government’s far-right ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) whose leader Devlet Bahceli has called for a declaration of war against the Kurdistan Region said all its lawmakers would be present to back the motion.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said although his faction has supported previous mandates he could not comment on the new proposal, and he was waiting to see its content.

Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers have opposed all previous mandates.

Alarmed by the Kurdish vote in Iraq and de facto autonomous Syrian Kurds’ territorial expansion in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group, Turkey in recent days began increasing its military presence on the border with both countries.

An army drill the Turkish army launched right on the border with Kurdistan Region joined hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, and thousands of troops in an apparent response to Kurdish authorities’ determination to proceed with holding the referendum entered its fourth day.

Westward, in the Kilis and Hatay provinces bordering Syria, Turkey continued to beef up its army reinforcements in preparation of what the pro-government media suggest as an imminent incursion into the Kurdish district of Afrin across the border.

Despite Erdogan’s far-right allies’ calls for war against Erbil, the government previously ruled out any prospects of military action should the region go for independence.

Erdogan who was on an official trip to the United States for the annual UN convention once again called for a cancellation of the vote while threatening measures which he said would be specified after a Friday meeting of his national security council.

Ankara also considers making an incursion into Afrin on the grounds that Kurdish groups there are “terrorists” as it continued to hold talks this month with Syrian regime’s primary military sponsor Russia.

Turkey fears the emergence of a Kurdistan state from Iraq and Kurdish autonomy in Syria will embolden its restive Kurdish population’s similar demands of political and cultural freedom.

Operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the meantime went on as the Diyarbakir governorate imposed a round-the-clock curfew on at least 46 villages in the major Kurdish province’s northern mountainous region.

 

Editing by Ava Homa