ANKARA
\nIn the aftermath of the killing of nine Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq, Turkiye carried out a series of airstrikes against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party, or PKK, in northern Syria and Iraq.
\n\u201cTurkiye will never allow the establishment of a \u2018terrorland\u2019 on its southern borders under any pretext and for any reason,\u201d the official statement said after the security meeting chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later on Saturday.
\nSimultaneously, more than 113 people were arrested in Turkiye over suspected links with the PKK, which Ankara and its Western allies classify as a terrorist group.
\nAlong with military incursions in Syria, several airstrikes hit Hakurk, Metina, Gara and Qandil regions in northern Iraq, destroying caves, shelters, bunkers and oil facilities.
\nOn Sunday, the Turkish intelligence organization announced that it \u201cneutralized\u201d Hasan Seburi, a PKK member responsible for intelligence gathering and surveillance against Turkiye, in Iraq\u2019s Sulaymaniyah region.
\nTurkiye has been conducting Operation Claw-Lock in northern Iraq since April 2022, establishing several military points in the Duhok governorate to fight the group.
\nThree weeks ago, a Turkish base in northern Iraq was targeted by PKK-affiliated groups, resulting in the death of six Turkish soldiers. Another three soldiers were killed during clashes that followed the attack.
\nThe recent escalation of PKK attacks against Turkish positions in the region is now under scrutiny.
\nRich Outzen, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, suggests that the PKK may be driven by a need to demonstrate its capability to inflict casualties on the Turkish military amid changing dynamics in warfare technologies.
\n\u201cThe advent of drone warfare, enhanced intelligence and precision strike in Iraq, Syria and southeastern Turkiye has badly eroded what once seemed like a serious military threat to Turkish forces,\u201d he told Arab News.
\n\u201cBy selecting the most favorable circumstances \u2014 bad weather and very rugged terrain \u2014 PKK leadership focused efforts to achieve a very rare successful operation,\u201d he said.
\nThe second reason, Outzen believes, \u201cis a desire to alter the trajectory of US policy in Iraq and Syria.\u201d
\nOutzen said the US \u201chas decreasing interest in Syria and decreasing rationale for continuing support to the YPG as Daesh recedes as a primary security concern in the region.\u201d
\nIn Iraq, \u201cincreasing tensions between pro-Iranian militias and US forces \u2014 as well as the Kurdistan Regional Government\u2019s Peshmerga forces \u2014 has put obstacles in the path of the PKK-friendly \u2018Kurdish unity\u2019 push that elements of the President Joe Biden\u2019s administration have supported,\u201d he said.
\nOutzen added: \u201cBy provoking Turkish overreaction and creating new pressure in Washington to protect and unify \u2018the Kurds,\u2019 the PKK hopes to renew its ability to leverage US policy against Turkiye.\u201d
\nFinally, Outzen draws attention to the Iran factor.
\n\u201cQandil has a long history of tacit deals with Tehran; the ascendance of the PKK in northeast Syria is largely a product of cooperative strategy among Assad, the Revolutionary Guard Corps and Qandil,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cTehran has its own reasons for wanting new escalations around the region in the period following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks against Israel, and it is likely that the PKK is serving as an instrumentality in that strategic approach,\u201d he added.
\nThe extent of Turkiye\u2019s operations against PKK positions remains uncertain.
\nOutzen believes the PKK is operating near the limit of its operational reach, and that only under limited circumstances it is capable of engaging Turkish forces at a relative advantage \u2014 conditions that exist in the mountains between Iraq and Turkiye, but not on the plains in Syria or in southeast Turkiye.
\n\u201cThe question of how large Turkish counterattacks will be remains open, but a large-scale offensive against the PKK where it is most vulnerable, in Syria, is a possibility,\u201d he said.
\nDr. Bilgay Duman, coordinator of Iraq studies at Ankara-based think tank ORSAM, said the PKK has recently shifted its tactics and is pursuing a different strategy, which can partly explain the increase in attacks against Turkish soldiers in the region.
\n\u201cPreviously, the PKK was launching attacks in spring. However, in the past couple of years, it began attacking Turkish military points during winter to establish control over the areas and to result in more casualties,\u201d he told Arab News.
\nDr. Duman said that there had been a PKK presence in almost eight mountainous areas in northern Iraq, resulting in the evacuation of about 800 villages in the zone.
\n\u201cTurkiye has been developing consecutive operations toward the region to break this dominance and to cut the logistic connections between different areas,\u201d he said.
\nDuman said Turkiye \u201csignificantly narrowed down the territory of the PKK camps.\u201d
\nHe said Turkiye \u201calso targets Qamisli and Al-Dirbasiyah in Syria, where the Syrian branch of the PKK is mainly located.\u201d
\nBut the presence of Turkish soldiers in the region \u201cinevitably makes direct confrontation with the terror group a necessity,\u201d he said.
\nThe PKK, which has launched a bloody insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, claimed responsibility last October for an attack on the headquarters of the Turkish interior ministry in Ankara in which two police officers were injured.
\nAnticipating a more aggressive stance from the PKK as military pressure continues, Duman said that Turkish counterterrorism authorities have already taken measures to confront any domestic security threat that may arise in retaliation to cross-border operations in Iraq and Syria.
\n\u201cAs long as the central government of Iraq and the KRG cannot actively counteract to contain the PKK, Turkiye is expected to continue its operations during winter and spring,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANKARA In the aftermath of the killing of nine Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq, Turkiye carried out a series of airstrikes against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party, or PKK, in northern Syria and Iraq. \u201cTurkiye will never allow the establishment of a \u2018terrorland\u2019 on its southern borders under any pretext and for any reason,\u201d the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-380822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n