Islam Times - Iraqi resistance forces will give shocking response to Turkish offensives: Lawmaker

Iraqi resistance forces will give shocking response to Turkish offensives: Lawmaker

Islam Times - A legislator from the Iraqi Fatah (Conquest) political alliance says the country’s anti-terror resistance groups will soon deliver “a shocking response” to the ongoing Turkish military offensives in the country’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region as they constitute a flagrant violation of Baghdad’s sovereignty.

Ali al-Fatlawi told Iraq’s Arabic-language al-Maalomah news agency that the Coordination Framework along with Popular Mobilization Units – better known as Hashad al-Sha’abi – will give a crushing response to Turkey within the next few days.

He said “the Iraqi government always stands idly by in the face of attacks and violations carried out against Iraq.”

Fatlawi went on to say that Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Mohamed al-Halbousi takes his personal interests into consideration during foreign meetings, as he refused to demand an immediate end to Turkey’s repeated violations of the Iraqi sovereignty and security when he met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently.

The Iraqi lawmaker highlighted that Halbousi deliberately made no reference to Turkish attacks on Iraqi territories during last Thursday's special parliamentary session.

Turkey launched a new cross-border incursion into Iraq, codenamed Operation Claw-Lock, in April. The air-and-ground military attacks target suspected PKK positions in the Zab, Basiyan, Avasheen, and Korajiwar districts in the Kurdistan region.

The Iraqi government summoned the Turkish ambassador, Ali Riza Guney, shortly afterwards and handed him a "strongly worded" protest note over the offensive, and called the operation a blatant violation of its sovereignty.

On the other hand, Ankara summoned the Iraqi charge d'affaires and informed him those military operations will continue if Baghdad doesn't take action against PKK members.

Militants of the PKK — designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union — regularly clash with Turkish forces in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of Turkey attached to northern Iraq.

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group.

Earlier this month, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry condemned in the strongest terms a Turkish drone strike in the Kurdistan region that killed several people, pledging that appropriate measures will be taken after an investigation into the deadly attack is completed.

The ministry said in a statement on June 17 that such actions “represent violation of Iraq's sovereignty and a threat to the security of ordinary people, several of whom lost their lives and sustained injuries as a result of the attack.”

“This attack undermines the security of Iraq and stability of its people, and requires a unified stance to be confronted,” the statement added.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry went on to pledge “necessary steps after completion of a thorough investigation into the attack.”

A Turkish drone struck a security base belonging to the Protection Force of Ezidxan, which is aligned with the so-called Kurdistan Communities Union and backed by the PKK militant group, in the Snune sub-district of Sinjar in the Iraqi Kurdistan region on June 15.

According to the Kurdish-language Kurdistan 24 television news network, the attack by Turkish drone left at least six people dead and injured several others. However, some other media outlets put the death toll at four.