MESOP NEWS : ERDOGAN’S PART TIME IRAQ INVASIONS – Turkish army entered seven kilometers into Iraqi Kurdistan: authorities

31 Jan 2018 – MESOP –  Turkish army has entered seven kilometers into Iraq’s Kurdistan region, authorities and villagers said, staging hostilities in an area on the border with Turkey. Villagers in Barmiza village in the Bradost area on iraqi Kurdistan-Turkey border say the Turkish soldiers can easily been seen in the area where they staged fronts.Villagers say they cannot go to the mountains to tend and rear their livestock because as they said the Turkish soldiers open fire at them.“The Turkish army always bombard these areas [on the border with Turkey – about 20 kilometers from Soran],” a Kurdish villager told NRT on Tuesday.

Another villager said the Turkish military has stationed a military base in Gali Rashe in the Bradost area, located in northeast of Erbil.The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) commanders say the Turkish army intends to attack the PKK positions by crossing into Iraq’s Kurdistan region.“We fight them. We have recently killed 16 Turkish soldiers,” Said Raza Garzia, a PKK commander, told NRT. According to authorities in Bradost sub-district, the Turkish military have entered seven kilometers into the Kurdistan region since November 2017. Clashes have also taken place between Turkish soldiers and the PKK fighters.“We don’t know the number of the [Turkish] soldiers. They have stationed bases and have heavy weapons in these areas,” Bradost sub-district director Ihsan Chalabi told NRT.

Authorities said they have informed the government that the Turkish army has crossed the border of the Kurdistan region.Earlier this week and for the past 3 years, Turkey has shelled suspected PKK positions with warplanes and artillery in Iraqi Kurdistan since a two-year ceasefire between the Turkish military and the PKK ended in July 2015. Despite continued destruction of farming villages and the deaths and injuries of innocent civilians, neither the Baghdad nor Erbil governments nor their international partners have recently spoken out against Turkey’s actions into the Kurdistan region. www.mesop.de