The killing of 13 Turkish hostages in Iraq by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has caused anger, and also a debate about the possibility of a wide-scale operation by Turkey. The hostages were executed in the Gara region, inside a special PKK cave “prison,” Arab News reports.
It has been claimed they were former soldiers and police officers, although Turkey has said they were civilians. Turkey lost three of its troops during the cross-border operation, which began on Wednesday, while 48 PKK fighters were killed.
Ankara said on Sunday that 13 Turkish civilians were found executed in a cave in northern Iraq while 48 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants were killed in an operation launched against the group on 10 February.
Defence Minister Hulusi Akar also said three Turkish soldiers were killed and three others wounded during the fight with the PKK, labelled as a “terrorist organisation” by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Akar said 12 of the kidnapped Turks had been shot in the head and one in the shoulder.
The hostages had been held for four years in the mountains of northern Iraq. Akar said they were shot by their PKK captors as Turkish troops were about to stage a rescue operation.
“According to initial information given by two terrorists captured alive, our citizens were martyred at the start of the operation by the terrorist responsible for the cave,” Akar said at the operation’s control centre near the Iraq border.
Akar added that the military operation was launched against the PKK in northern Iraq’s Gara region earlier this week to secure Turkish borders and find citizens who had previously been kidnapped. The identity of those found dead in the cave has yet to be announced.
A statement on a PKK website said some prisoners it was holding, including Turkish intelligence, police and military personnel, had died during clashes in the area. The group denied it had ever hurt prisoners.
The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and EU. It has been fighting against the Turkish state since 1984, with more than 40,000 people killed so far.
Turkey said the hostages, who were held captive for years, were killed by the PKK. But the People’s Defense Center, which is the party’s military wing, said that Turkish forces shelled the cave, leading to the hostages’ death. A military expert, who requested anonymity, said that those captured were automatically considered as civilians in Turkish military procedures.
“However, I don’t expect a bigger operation in the region for now,” the expert told Arab News. “The winter conditions are so hard there to sustain any military move.”
Similar operations — to free captives from the hands of the PKK — have been mediated by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). But such mediation has become unlikely given the HDP’s alleged ties to the PKK.
“Turkish forces are now occupying a couple of villages lower down from the Gara mountain hideout, through which PKK fighters and their supplies have to move,” analyst Bill Park, a visiting research fellow at King’s College London, told Arab News.
“The Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) seems to be going along with it, because they are dependent on Turkey in many ways and because they also don’t welcome the PKK presence. But it is evident that they are also embarrassed, as local Iraqi Kurds don’t welcome Turkey’s presence and often suffer from its bombing and other raids.”
He added that the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which has been always closer to the PKK and less trusting of Turkey, had been more critical of this intensified Turkish action.
Last year, following its Operation Claw-Tiger against PKK insurgents along the Qandil mountains that host PKK headquarters, Turkey was leaving its military footprint deeper into northern Iraq with plans to set up temporary bases in the region in order to better target the party’s hideouts, routes and logistic capabilities.
Iraqi Kurds feared that this expanded presence meant a longer and maybe permanent presence in their territory, he added.
“It does indeed look like Turkey is digging in for a long stay, as in northern Syria too.”
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party and its ally the Nationalist Movement Party keep calling for the closure of the HDP. The latest PKK attack is likely to trigger more political actors to repeat such demands by blaming the HDP.
Park said that the policy line from the new US administration would also be a factor in terms of Turkey’s Iraq moves, as President Joe Biden’s team is expected to focus on fighting the remnants of Daesh in Syria with the help of local allies the Syrian Kurds.
“The Turkish approach is also complicated by the presence of the Syrian Kurdish PYD/YPG forces in Syria, and the anger of a growing number of increasingly radicalized young Iraqi Kurds. Indeed, Turkish actions in northern Iraq are partly driven by developments in northern Syria,” Park said.
Turkey has been pressing the US to end its policy of arming the Syrian Kurds, who are in close contact with their offshoots in Iraq.
“There is far more sympathy in Washington for the general Kurdish causes now, both in Congress and in the Biden administration. So, Turkey’s diplomatic relations will be made more difficult by this attempt at a military crackdown,” Park said.