ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Over 200 villages have been emptied due to sporadic clashes between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the mountainous regions of Amedi, Duhok province, forcing residents to seek shelter in urban areas.
“There are 356 villages across all the six sub-districts of Amedi district. Due to the PKK-Turkey conflict, 210 of them have been abandoned,” Warshin Salman, Amedi mayor, told The New Region on Thursday.
Civilians are frequently caught in the Turkey-PKK crossfire, bearing the brunt of the nearly four-decade-long war.
Residents of Mrsitak, another villager in Amedi, also ponder abandoning their livelihood and properties, fearing growing escalations in recent months between Turkey and the PKK in their region.
“We always have our hands placed on our hearts," Hadiya Yousif, a scared villager, said. "We live in a complete state of anxiety due to the PKK-Turkey conflict."
Yousif said, “The PKK fighters plant landmines on our roads and streets, posing a grave danger to our lives.”
Turkey has alike established numerous checkpoints around several villages in Duhok province, creating problems for locals.
The PKK is an armed group that has fought for increased Kurdish rights in Turkey for decades. The group, designated as a terrorist organization by Ankara, uses mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region as shelter and often engages in direct armed conflict with Turkey.
Iraq officially in July rebranded the PKK to “Banned PKK” in all affairs of state, months after a high-level meeting between Ankara and Baghdad led the Iraqi side to criminalize the group officially.
Turkey has for years launched several rounds of an operation dubbed Claw Operation against positions of the PKK in the Kurdistan Region. The latest series of operations was launched in April 2022, dubbed Operation Claw Lock, which aims to end the group’s presence in the region.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in March claimed that they were close to permanently “resolving” the PKK presence on the Turkey-Iraq border.
After a high-level delegation from the Turkish government visited Baghdad in March, Baghdad announced that they had officially categorized the PKK as a threat to its security and classified it as a banned group in the country.
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