Erbil: The three blindfolded Kurdish men kneeling in yellow jumpsuits with their backs to the audience recalled the Baghdad trials of alleged Islamic State (IS) operatives. Except this time, the venue was the interior ministry in the Iraqi capital, the occasion of a 1 July press conference, and those accused were Kurdish members of an organisation only recently officially banned in the country: the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The high-profile nature of the 1 July press conference hinted strongly at closer Iraq-Turkey ties despite Baghdad’s repeated statements condemning Ankara's anti-PKK incursions into northern Iraq.
The three men stand accused of setting multiple highly destructive fires to markets in one of the two major Kurdish parties’ areas of influence, causing millions of dollars in damage, injuring hundreds of people, and undermining trust in Erbil’s security apparatus and emergency preparedness. They also were reportedly planning to conduct further attacks, including on a pipeline running from Kirkuk to Turkey.
In August, a political clash over Kirkuk provincial council nominations and a meeting held in Baghdad further aggravated tensions between the two major parties in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: the Iran-linked and Sulaymaniyah-based Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Turkey-aligned and Erbil-based Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
Arsonists ‘trained by the PKK’...and PUK?
Two of the men arrested had reportedly, at some point, been members of the security forces affiliated with the PUK, which has long enjoyed close relations with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. The PUK’s rival, the KDP, has instead long clashed with Baghdad on multiple issues. This time, though, the tables seem to have turned.
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In relation to the crimes outlined in the 1 July press conference, Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) interior ministry official Hemin Mirany said that “PKK security and military cadres came from Syria, Turkey, and Qandil, and were trained in Kifri, Sulaymaniyah, and Sangasar to carry out these terrorist acts.”
The latter areas are under PUK influence.
He claimed one of the suspects “was an employee of Peshmerga Unit 70”, controlled by the PUK, while the other was “an officer in the Sulaymaniyah CTG”.
“Both were trained by the PKK,” he stressed.
The alleged criminals were reportedly also planning to carry out attacks in Baghdad, which would have marked a significant shift from their previous focus on KDP strongholds.
KDP officials have, for many years, decried the presence of PKK fighters in the KRI and demanded they leave, claiming the group is the source of multiple problems in the border area.
The PUK have instead been much more accommodating towards the group but have stridently denied any connection with the crimes committed.
A PUK official noted to Al Majalla in an interview last year that his party had always had close relations with the central government in Baghdad and that Jalal Talabani, PUK founder and president of Iraq from 2005 to 2014, "used to say that the centre of our operations was Baghdad.”
Multiple officials in Baghdad have confirmed in recent months and years to Al Majalla that the PUK has long had closer cooperation with the central government than the KDP.
However, if relations between Ankara and Baghdad continue to grow closer and the PUK continues to stonewall against anti-PKK cooperation, the KDP may soon find a much warmer welcome in the Iraqi capital.
Two days after the press conference at which the arrested and confessed PKK members were shown to journalists, KDP president Masoud Barzani made a two-day visit to Baghdad, during which he engaged in numerous talks and meetings with officials, including the prime minister as well as foreign diplomats. Observers hailed the visit as “historic”.
Iraq bans PKK but shies away from ‘terrorist’ designation
In an extensive in-person interview in May, a Turkish official close to the ongoing negotiations between Iraq and Turkey told Al Majalla that Erdogan’s historic visit to Baghdad in April had been preceded by “several years of preparation” aiming to introduce a “structured framework” for relations between the two countries.
The visit had been the first by the Turkish president in 13 years.
The official, who asked to remain unnamed in order to speak more freely, noted to Al Majalla that among major outstanding issues had been “the fight against terrorism and water”, both of which he said progress has been made on.
He cited both the PKK and the PUK as problematic but noted that Baghdad was well aware of these concerns.
“Iraq recognised PKK as a threat back in December 2023,” he said, “and after deliberations, they named it as a proscribed organisation. These were positive steps taken to move against terrorism on a common platform.”
The PKK is recognised as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US, and the EU. It has for decades used Iraq’s mountainous northern region as a hideout and to train its fighters and ideologues.
“Of course, we would like to see more from the Iraqi side, but there is the political will and recognition that PKK is undermining the sovereignty of Iraq,” he said, and “they have started working on this file with us.”
When pressed for details, he said that he could not discuss “military and tactical issues” but that “we will be working more closely than before”.
An Iraqi official close to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani noted in comments to Al Majalla in late June that a word used in a 28 May document of the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers on the status of PKK was the same as that used for the outlawed Baath organisation.
The official called it a “significant” development while admitting it was not as large of a step as naming it a “terrorist organisation” would have been.
On 1 August, Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Authority proceeded to dissolve three political parties due to alleged links with the PKK: the Yazidi Freedom and Democracy Party, the Democratic Struggle Front Party, and the Kurdistan Society’s Freedom Party (Tavgari Azadi).
