Turkey extends Syria, Iraq mandates
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The Turkish Parliament extended on Saturday a mandate that allowed the army to conduct cross-border operations in Syria and Iraq.
Turkey’s Grand National Assembly convened for the first time after the failed July 15 coup attempt.
The mandate proposed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was supported by Turkish Republican (CHP) and Nationalist (MHP) opposition parties, whereas the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) voted against the motion.
The Turkish Army will now be able to resume its operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq and the Islamic State (IS) in Syria for another 13 months.
TURKISH INTERVENTIONS IN SYRIA AND IRAQ
For operations in Syria, Turkey adopted a mandate for the first time in October 2012.
Alarmed by Kurdish self-rule and territorial expansion, Turkey began a “Euphrates Shield Operation” in Syria, capturing the border town of Jarablus, in late August to fight IS and contain Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) gains.
The Turkish intervention in Syria came after a summer softening of relations with Russia whose warplane Turkey shot down in November 2015.
Turkey is supporting Arab nationalist and Islamist Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions in northern Syria where it hopes to create a 90 kilometers-wide, 25 kilometers-deep “haven” to eventually relocate some of the three million Syrian refugees there.
Entering its 40th day, the Turkish Army and FSA has captured more than 100 villages in an area of 960 kilometers square from IS.
Citing a Turkish General Staff briefing, CNN Turk said the Army had conducted more than 6,300 shellings and scores of airstrikes in support of Syrian rebels.
On Aug. 27, Turkish airstrikes and artillery shelling killed 24 civilians, six of them children, in the YPG-held village of Suraysat, south of Jarablus, according to a mid-September Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.
In Iraq, the Turkish Army has been operating against the PKK fighters since the start of the Kurdish uprising in 1984.
Turkey has staged five major ground incursions, the first in 1992 and the last of them in 2008, into Iraq in offensives on PKK bases in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region.
In July 2015, Turkey restarted an air campaign into Iraq, after the collapse of a two year-held ceasefire and peace negotiations with the PKK.
Moreover, Turkey claimed to have killed hundreds of Kurdish fighters in daily airstrikes since then.
On Aug. 1, 2015, Turkish warplanes killed eight civilians in Zargeli village of the Erbil Governorate.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany