Iraqi Kurdistan treads carefully as neighbouring countries ramp up attacks on 'terrorists'

Risks from neighboring nations

Among the calm of leafy winding roads in one of Erbil's multiplying gated residential complexes with their palatial homes and promises of American-style education for the young, a politician spoke to Al Majalla about threats to peaceful coexistence in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Prime among them, he said in the discussion in late September, are neighbouring countries and armed groups originating in them.

He claimed that only an external power – "the US or the UN" – is capable of putting an end to problems being caused in this part of the country right now, by "putting pressure on the Kurdistan Workers Party and Turkey" as well as on the central government in Baghdad as concerns its relations with Iran.

The politician is from the largest and most popular political party in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the Erbil-based Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The KDP is considered close to Turkey.

The second largest and its rival is the Sulaymaniyah-based Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which has long been held to have close relations with Iran.

The KDP politician is from the Dohuk governorate near Iraq's northern border with Turkey, where the PKK maintains a presence. He asked that no other details about him be given due to continuing threats from the PKK.

"I haven't been back to my home village in 5 years," he said. "And the people in the border area are afraid to farm there. They are afraid of the bombs, and they are afraid of the PKK."

"The PKK have no plan. Nothing. They have been fighting for 40 years," he said, his voice tinged with anger.

In an interview with Al Majalla in June, Peshmerga general Sirwan Barzani voiced a similar view, stressing that "we don't understand what they (the PKK) want".

Maj. Gen. Barzani is commander of the Sector 6 Peshmerga forces, near the Makhmour refugee camp, where thousands of Turkish Kurds have lived for decades, and the PKK has a presence.

The Kurdistan Region has repeatedly tried to put pressure on the central government in Baghdad to do something about the presence of the PKK, he added in the June interview. 

"It is also clear that they (the PKK) have moved many of their fighters close to Iran,"

Maj. Gen. Barzani said, adding he thought the PKK "feel safer there."

The KDP official told Al Majalla that Turkish attacks in Iraq's northern had increased in September but that these attacks were "by drones, not air strikes" and that activities by the outlawed PKK had decreased in the recent period in his home governorate. 

"You know those places where they are moving the Iranian Kurdish opposition groups out of? The PKK will go there," the KDP politician posited in referring to the PKK.

'PUK has always had close relations with Baghdad'

An official originally from the Erbil governorate who belongs to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party told Al Majalla in an interview on 20 September that the PUK had always had close relations with the central government in Baghdad.

"Even Mam Jalal," he said, referring to Jalal Talabani, PUK founder and president of Iraq from 2005 to 2014, "used to say that the centre of our operations was Baghdad".

He said he sees little hope for better relations between the KDP and the PUK, the two main Kurdish parties in the region, in the near future.

Both the KDP politician and the PUK official cited risks to their safety as reasons for agreeing to speak to Al Majalla only if no identifying details were cited.

Disputes between the KDP and the PUK have been aggravated by multiple incidents in recent months. Despite over a decade of attempts to reform the region's armed forces, both parties maintain de facto control over their own Peshmerga brigades. The US has long tried to apply pressure to bring these brigades under a sole command structure.

The PUK official told Al Majalla that due to the protracted nature of fruitless attempts to bring the PUK and the KDP closer together, "people just don't care anymore".

"No issues are being solved" while at the same time "more issues are being added", he claimed.

Airport attack 'might have intended effect'

The 18 September attack on an airport in the PUK zone of influence was not the first of its kind, with an attack in early April near another airport reportedly almost hitting the commander of the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), a man widely known by the assumed name Mazloum Abdi.

Read more: Mazloum Abdi: Syria, Iran, and Turkey 'incited' Arab tribes to attack the SDF

In April, the attack did not kill anyone, and multiple sources within Iraq told Al Majalla that it had been intended as a "warning".

The SDF initially denied that Abdi was present in the area at the time of the attack – or even in Iraq. Abdi later admitted that he had been there and said he was with troops from the US-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS).

Abdi was a top-ranked member of the PKK for decades before becoming chief of the US-backed SDF. The YPG, which forms the core and leadership of the SDF, is widely considered the Syrian branch of the PKK.

The PKK has been involved in guerilla warfare and attacks against Turkey for decades and is officially considered a terrorist organization by the US, the EU, and multiple other nations.

An official from the Iraqi central government claimed that the drone used in the Sept. 18 attack had entered Iraq from Turkey.

No country has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The KDP politician told Al Majalla that this latest attack on an airport in the Kurdish region – even if it did violate national sovereignty – might encourage the PUK to be more cautious about their dealings with the PKK.

A press release appearing on the website of the Turkish foreign ministry stated about the attack that "it is understood that the members of the PUK's 'Anti-Terrorist Group' were conducting a training exercise together with PKK/YPG terrorists at the time of the explosion".

It added that this "development is quite disturbing as it has clearly revealed the cooperation between PUK's security apparatus and members of the terrorist organisation."

 "This latest incident has also confirmed once again the accuracy of the measures we have taken regarding Sulaymaniyah, the people of which are almost taken hostage by the terrorist organization," the statement said.

On 3 April, only a few days before the "warning" attack that may have targeted the SDF's Abdi, Turkey closed its airspace for flights to and from Sulaymaniyah.

Turkey cited security concerns related to the PKK using this airport.

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani has denied reports that the YPG were receiving training at the Arbat airport when it was hit.

According to local media outlet Rudaw, the local counterterrorism forces and "the YPG have not denied security cooperation", and the "SDF has said several times that the CTG actively took part in some" operations against IS in Syria.

Kurdish opposition groups in exile

Meanwhile, Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in exile in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have grown quiet and much more cautious than a year ago.

The deputy representative of the PDKI in Erbil, Amanj Zebaii, told Al Majalla in an interview at the party's offices in Erbil late last year that he could not give any numbers as to how many of the party's members and/or fighters were present in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq but that they numbered in the "thousands".

He noted that the PDKI is "by far" the largest of the Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in the KRI, a claim corroborated by members of the Komala party.

Zebaii added at that time that "we have two (refugee) camps in Erbil, four camps in Koya and a few bases in the mountains near the border with Iran."

He did not immediately reply to a request for comment for this article.

PUK conducts flurry of meetings in Baghdad

On Sept. 21, Qais al-Khazali received PUK president Bafel Talabani in Baghdad. Khazali is the commander of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq armed group, closely linked to Iran.

Talabani also met with several other senior officials, many of whom were seen as close to Iran, as well as Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council chairman, Faiq Zaydan.