Qatari paper: Turkey set up barracks, deployed tanks inside Iraqi territories
Turkish troops
Baghdad (Iraqinews.com) – A Qatari newspaper has claimed that the Turkish army set up 19 military barracks and deployed tanks inside Iraqi territories to face the threat of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters.
The London-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed paper quoted a local source as saying on Monday that the Turkish army established the barracks inside Kurdish and Assyrian villages and built a fence around them.
“Turkey also deployed tanks and medium-range artillery systems that are capable of reaching the depth of the Kurdistan region,” according to the source.
He pointed out the Turkish move came as part of Ankara efforts to secure borders between Iraq and Turkey against the PKK threat.
On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the start of a military operation in Sinjar area in northern Iraq.
“We said we would go into Sinjar. Now operations have begun there. The fight is internal and external,” Erdogan told a rally in Trabzon province in northeastern Turkey, ahead of a meeting of the ruling Justice and Development Party.
However, the Joint Operations Command in Iraq stressed that no military operations were launched in Sinjar or its vicinity.
“The security situation in Nineveh, Sinjar and border areas is under the control of Iraqi forces,” the command said in a statement, denying news that foreign troops crossed Iraqi borders into these areas.