Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters leave a PKK
mausoleum in the Sinjar region, northern Iraq, May 1, 2016. (photo
by REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic)
On Dec. 15, US
State Department spokesman John Kirby was asked by a local Kurdish news agency
about the US stance on this issue. “We continue to believe that the PKK, which
is a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, should have no role in
Sinjar, and we regard their presence there as a major
obstacle to a reconciliation and to the return of internally displaced people,”
Kirby said.
He added, “We urge all groups, including the KRG, to
facilitate political reconciliation so that these internally displaced people
can return and the traumatized communities in that region can rebuild."
At a conference
in the city of Dahuk on Dec. 15, Iraqi Kurdistan's Prime Minister Nechirvan
Barzani said, “One of the main reasons that has deterred the
rebuilding of Sinjar is the PKK, and that is a fact.”
The people of that region, Barzani said, are uncertain
about their future there given the PKK presence, which is why “they do not
reconstruct the city.”
He added, “The PKK should understand that, and for the
good of the people, they have to leave the region. The people of Sinjar have to
run their city and decide on their future.”
Islamic State
(IS) militants infamously assaulted the Sinjar region in August 2014
in an attempt to destroy the Yazidi community there. Thousands of Yazidi
civilians were killed by IS, and an estimated 3,500 Yazidi women and girls
remain in IS captivity as sex slaves. Hundreds of thousands are still
displaced.
In August 2014,
the PKK established an armed presence in the city of Sinjar, and the Kurdish
peshmerga forced IS from the entire city in November 2015. The PKK have not left,
and their continued presence is causing
tensions with the peshmerga.
“The KRG is already trying to put pressure on the PKK by
reportedly limiting access to Sinjar,” Aliza Marcus, the author of "Blood
and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence," told Al
Monitor. “But the policy doesn't appear to be enough to push the PKK out, or to
build enough local support to push the PKK out.”
She said, “As for the United States, I don't see this
as a priority at all. Iraq has a lot of issues the United States is dealing
with. The PKK presence in Sinjar really isn't one of the big issues for the
United States, or for Baghdad it seems.”
Turkish
President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan warned that Ankara would intervene against the PKK in
Sinjar if they attempted to establish a permanent presence there.
“We will go on this campaign [Operation Euphrates
Shield] in Syria and Iraq, and now in Kirkuk, Mosul, Tal Afar and Sinjar. Why?
Sinjar is about to be the new Qandil [for the PKK],” Erdogan said Oct. 27.
“Thus, we cannot allow it to happen in Sinjar, because the PKK is there.”
Erdogan was referring to the Qandil Mountains in Iraqi
Kurdistan, where the PKK has long maintained bases throughout its wars with
Turkey.
In November,
during negotiations between Baghdad and Ankara — over the latter’s contentious troop presence in Bashiqa near
Mosul — Iraq’s ambassador to Turkey, Hisham al-Alawi, mentioned the PKK
presence in Sinjar.
“The PKK
presence in northern Iraq — in Sinjar — happened without permission from the Iraqi
government,” Alawi said Nov. 11. He added that Baghdad is also not particularly
happy with the PKK presence in Sinjar.
“In 2013, when the Turkish government had a deal with
the PKK leaders — facilitated by the Kurdistan Regional Government — we were
not happy with the encouragement that PKK members would go to Iraqi territory,”
he said, referring to the cease-fire agreement reached between Turkey and the
PKK in early 2013, which saw many of the PKK fighters evacuate southeast Turkey
to their Qandil Mountains stronghold. “The Iraqi central government was not
involved in that particular agreement,” Alawi added.
In a recent interview with Al-Monitor, Barzani also said that the
KRG is in “continuous talks with Baghdad” over the PKK withdrawal from Sinjar.
“So far they haven’t taken any serious steps to help [with the withdrawal of
the PKK], and I personally cannot confirm that they have cut the YBS’ salaries
even though they told us they had.”
Barzani was
referring to Baghdad’s reported salary payments to the Sinjar
Resistance Units, the PKK-affiliated Yazidi force, which controls part of the
region.
He also
warned, “If matters come to a head and Ankara and Baghdad and other players get
drawn in, we too, as the KRG, are players and hold certain cards in our hands.”
He
clarified that this meant Erbil could possibly resort to using military force
to reclaim territory in Sinjar from the PKK. “Having said that,” he said, “I
don’t think it would be in anybody’s interest to reach that point.”
One thing these statements do make clear is that, to
varying degrees, the PKK's presence in Sinjar is opposed by Ankara, Baghdad,
Erbil and Washington. What they might do about it remains to be seen.
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