Turkey conducted dozens of airstrikes on Kurdish positions in Iraq and Syria killing four people. The strikes targeted training camps and ammunition depots of the Iraqi Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Syria’s People’s Protection Units (YPG) using fighter jets and drones.
The Turkish Defence Ministry stated on Wednesday that its air force carried out strikes in the Sinjar and Karacak regions in Northern Iraq and the Derik region in northeast Syria. The ministry noted that the strikes were meant to “eliminate the terrorist attacks against our people.”
The strikes, dubbed as “Operation Winter Eagle,” targeted “shelters, bunkers, caves, tunnels, ammunition depots and so-called headquarters and training camps belonging to terrorists,” according to the ministry.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the airstrikes killed at least four people. Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said that the aim of the strikes was to “ensure the security of our 84 million citizens and our borders.” He added that Ankara took “necessary precautions not to harm innocent people and the environment.”
Teröristlerin inlerini başlarına yıkan “Kış Kartalı Harekâtı” dün akşam bu saatlerde böyle başladı… 🇹🇷 pic.twitter.com/MSvGwKQCyg
— T.C. Millî Savunma Bakanlığı (@tcsavunma) February 2, 2022
“Many terrorists were neutralised in the Winter Eagle Operation. We follow the results closely. In the coming hours and days, we will receive the final results of the operation from intelligence channels and other sources,” Akar said, adding, “Terrorists once again felt the breath of the Turkish armed forces on their necks.”
However, a Kurdish-led administration in Syria condemned Turkey’s strikes and called on the international community to condemn Ankara’s “terrorist aggression” against Kurds in the region. It said that the strikes come just days after the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) wrested control of a prison that was captured by Islamic State militants earlier this month.
“This escalation and aggression is a clear indication that Turkey is not happy with Daesh’s [Islamic State] failure,” it added.
The Iraq-based PKK has been engaged in an armed struggle against the Turkish state since 1984 and the ensuing violence has cost more than 40,000 lives to date. The Kurds are an ethnic group with representation across the mountainous regions of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Over the past few decades, they have launched several campaigns to demand a separate homeland and self-determination. The Kurdish fight for separatism and a sovereign state is what led Ankara to outlaw many Kurdish organisations and declare the PKK as a terrorist group.
Ankara also remains pitted against the PKK’s Syrian affiliate group, the People’s Protection Forces (YPG) in northern Syria. Turkey has occupied northern Syria since 2016 in a bid to remove Kurdish militants, including the Syrian Democratic Forces and the YPG from the region. In 2019, Turkey, along with its Syrian allies, launched a major offensive into northeast Syria, known as Operation Peace Spring, against Kurdish militants in the region.