The Kurdish liberation group predicted the Turkish army’s inevitable defeat after Ankara launched its latest military offensive in the mountainous province of Duhok on April 23.
“The fascist and genocidal enemy can do whatever it wants,” a statement said. “It will not save it from suffering defeat and ending up in the dustbin of history in the face of the guerilla-led revolutionary resistance …”
The PKK said that it would repel Turkish soldiers in the Zap and Zagros mountains, after which “the occupiers will be driven out of all Kurdistan.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest invasion, codenamed Operation Claw Lightning, has faced fierce resistance, with scores of Turkish soldiers killed in clashes with the PKK.
The invaders have allegedly used chemical weapons on at least three occasions, with their forces so overrun that Ankara has been accused of bringing in some 2,000 jihadist fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as reinforcements.
Anti-war protesters have faced arrest, with scores taken into custody in Slemani last week. Detainees claimed that their detention had been ordered by Turkey and the region’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
On Saturday Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar visited a military base in Kurdistan, one of a network it operates in the northern Duhok and Erbil governates.
He insisted that Turkish forces were waging a “just struggle” against “terrorism” in Azerbaijan, Libya, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Sudan, as well as Iraqi Kurdistan.
Ankara is facing accusations that it is planning “an official invasion of Iraqi territory” after it announced that it was to open a new military base in the Metina area, where a battle is currently raging.
“These lands are not Turkey’s gardens or villages,” independent Iraqi MP Mensur Beeci said. “They cannot establish a military base wherever they want.”
By Steve Sweeney
Morning Star