ANKARA/BAGHDAD: Turkish tanks carried out drills at the Iraqi border on Monday, the army said, a week before a referendum across that frontier on Kurdish independence that Ankara has called a threat to its national security.
The exercises came as Turkey, the central government in Baghdad and their shared neighbor Iran all stepped up protests and warnings about the looming plebiscite in semi-autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq.
Iran, which like Turkey fears fueling separatism in its own Kurdish population, warned of unspecified consequences if the vote went ahead.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said any threats from inside or outside its territory would face immediate retaliation. The military command released pictures of the tanks speeding along roads and kicking up dust during exercises.
Iraq’s Supreme Federal Court ordered Kurdistan region to suspend the vote, Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi’s office said. Baghdad, its neighbors and Western powers fear the referendum could distract attention from the fight against Daesh militants across the region.
But the Kurdish leadership showed no sign of bowing to pressure to call off the vote, including from the United Nations — which urged Erbil to resolve disputes with Baghdad over land and power sharing through dialogue.
Tanks, missiles
In Turkey, around 100 military vehicles, mostly tanks, took part in the drill near the Habur border gate, a crossing point into Iraq, the private news agency Dogan said. Vehicles carrying missiles and howitzers also participated.
Turkish military sources said the drill was due to run until Sept. 26, a day after the planned Kurdish referendum.
Turkey has not spelt out what response it might take if the referendum goes ahead. It has brought forward meetings of the cabinet and its national security council to Friday, three days ahead of the vote, to look again at the situation.
Separately, Turkey’s military said it carried out an air strike in northern Iraq on Monday and that “four terrorists were neutralized.” Turkish forces often launch cross-border attacks they say target members of the outlawed Kurdish PKK group, which has waged an insurgency in southern Turkey for three decades.
“Those who are chasing dreams in Syria and Iraq should know very well that any attempt that threatens our national security, from inside or outside our borders, will be immediately retaliated in kind,” Prime Minister Yildirim said in a speech in the southern Turkish town of Sanliurfa.
Kurdish forces have, with US backing, been in the forefront of the battle against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The Kurdish involvement in Syria strains relations between Washington and Ankara.
The Iraqi Supreme Federal Court approved Prime Minister Abadi’s demand to consider “the breakaway of any region or province from Iraq as unconstitutional,” his office said in a statement.
The court is responsible for settling disputes between Iraq’s central government and regions including Kurdistan, but has no means to implement its rulings in the Kurdish region which has its own police and government, led by Massoud Barzani.
Iran issued a veiled warning to the Kurds that their security could be affected if Iraq’s unity was threatened.
“Any damage to this strategic principle would lead to the revision of and serious alteration in the existing cooperation between Iran and Iraq’s Kurdistan region,” said Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, according to state-run Press TV.
Turkey’s protests in the build-up to the vote had been relatively muted. It has built good relations with Barzani’s semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq, founded on strong economic links as well as Ankara and Erbil’s shared suspicions of other Kurdish groups.
The Kurdish Regional Government, led by Barzani’s KDP party, exports hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day to world markets via Turkey and said on Monday that Russian oil major Rosneft would invest in pipelines in the Kurdish region to export gas to Turkey and Europe.
Turkish tanks drill on Iraqi border week as Kurdish vote nears
Turkish tanks drill on Iraqi border week as Kurdish vote nears
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
