MESOP NEWS : PKK Maintains Control Over 650 Villages in Kurdistan Region: Official – Kurdish guerrillas prevent the displaced residents from returning home

  Basnews English 27/11/2016 – ERBIL — Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has taken hundreds of villages in Kurdistan Region under control, said a Kurdish official.

“Since 1991, PKK has seized 650 villages in Erbil and Duhok provinces, and it prohibits locals from rehabilitating their areas,” Krmanj Izzat, the mayor of Soran in Erbil province, told Anadolu Agency. The Kurdish official further explained that the PKK presence in the region attracts military confrontations and turns the area into a war zone; also it has brought damage to the properties of the civilians living nearby.

Despite Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) calling on the Turkish authorities to halt its airstrikes on KRG territories, Ankara continues raining bombs on the suspected areas of PKK presence, saying that the guerrillas organize military attacks on the Turkish forces from Qandil and other border areas. KRG officials, on various occasions, said that PKK is also preventing the government from embarking public service projects to those areas under their control.