IRAQ: Al-Fatah Alliance warns against Turkey forming a security belt in the Kurdish Region in Iraq

BAGHDAD – Al-Fatah Alliance leader Hadi al-Ameri has expressed his concerns over the large-scale Turkish incursion into northern Iraq. According to the leader of the second largest parliamentarian coalition, the Turkish military has moved inside Iraqi territory up to 25 kilometers on certain places. He said that this suggest that Turkey aims to create a new status-quo situation and impose a security belt similar to the security belt in northern Syria.

In a report by Newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, al-Ameri warns for this implicit scheme and calls on the Turkish government to withdraw immediately from Iraqi lands and for the central government in Baghdad to break its silence and take all necessary diplomatic actions and political measures to end this aggression. He urged the central government to raise the issue in the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation. He added that “all national Iraqi forces must take a united stand to preserve Iraqi sovereignty” and end these repeated violations by Turkey.

In the Saddam era there was an implied agreement between Turkey and the Saddam regime that Turkey could enter up to 10 kilometers into northern Iraq

In related news on Turkey, Armenian Member of Turkish Parliament for the HDP Garo Paylan demanded the AKP-government not to be drawn into the military escalation going on at the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. MP Paylan asked questions in parliament to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoglu about Turkey’s public support for Azerbaijan, reminding Turkey’s Foreign Minister that Turkey, as a member of the “Minsk” group created by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, should take a neutral stand in the recent military tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan.