Tehran, 17 June_Turkey says it has deployed special forces — backed by aerial and artillery support — to a northern Iraqi region in what it calls an operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, despite Baghdad’s outrage over Ankara’s increased military activities on Iraqi soil.
“Operation Claw-Tiger has begun. Our special forces heroes are in Haftanin,” some 15 kilometers into neighboring Iraq, the Turkish Defense Ministry said in a statement on its Twitter page on Wednesday.
The ministry said the commando force was backed up by the Air Force, ATAK helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs).
The deployment, it added, had been preceded by an intense artillery bombardment.
Attempting to justify the move, the ministry said the incursion was a response to a recent rise in “harassment and attacks on our police station and base areas.”
“#Operation Claw-Tiger is being carried out as part of our legitimate defense rights arising from international law oriented against the PKK and other terrorist elements,” it claimed.
The Turkish Air Force had begun pounding alleged PKK hideouts in northern Iraq as part of the operation a day earlier.
Ankara’s latest military offensive is likely to intensify tensions with Iraq, whose Foreign Ministry summoned Turkish Ambassador Fatih Yildiz on Monday and served him with a memorandum communicating Baghdad’s outrage over the air raids earlier in the day.
The note condemned violations of the Arab country’s sovereignty and airspace by the Turkish forces. The airstrikes, it added, contravened the international law and ran counter to the principle of good-neighborliness.
Baghdad then urged Turkey to stop the attacks and expressed readiness for joint cooperation in controlling border security in a manner that served the interests of both sides.
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