Sulaymaniyah / Anatolia
** Information collected by Anatolia from open sources:
– The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, opens space for the terrorist organization “PKK/YPG” in the city center and its countryside.
– The party provides military training to the organization’s members coming from northern Syria and allows the Shiite militias to use Sulaymaniyah as a crossing route into Syria.
In conjunction with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party in the Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah giving space to the terrorist organization “PKK/YPG” in the center of the city and its countryside, the latter is disrupting the stability, security, and economic development of the region with its terrorist acts such as banditry, extortion, and kidnapping.
According to information collected by Anatolia from open sources, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party in Sulaymaniyah continues to open space for the PKK/YPG organization in the center of the city and its countryside (east of the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq).
According to a statement made by the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, Masrour Barzani, in February 2021, “The reconstruction of 800 villages has not been completed due to the terrorist PKK’s occupation of the mountains and residential areas in the region, as the terrorists prevent farmers from reaching their lands.”
The PKK organization is present in Sulaymaniyah and its environs through political parties and extensions, and practices drug trade and smuggling at various points between the Iranian and Iraqi borders.
In the Sulaymaniyah Center, there are political parties and non-governmental organizations working on behalf of the terrorist organization, such as “Tevjira Azadi,” “BYD,” “RJAK,” the Kurdish Women’s Research Archive Library, and the Academy Center.
The terrorist organization, which has set up checkpoints in the countryside of the city of Sulaymaniyah, disrupts the operation of public transportation, blackmails citizens, and carries out kidnappings of civilians.
Sources say that the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party issued identity cards to PKK members, which allows terrorists to obtain a space of freedom in the region.
The protection provided by the party is considered a strategic bridge in the relationship between the PKK’s Qandil Mountain on the Iraqi-Iranian border and its extensions in Syria.
The party provides military training to members of the terrorist organization coming from northern Syria, and also allows Shiite militias to use Sulaymaniyah as a crossing route into Syria.
Helicopter crash reveals cooperation between the party and the PKK
The extent of cooperation between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the PKK is demonstrated by the killing of 9 members of the terrorist organization as a result of a helicopter crash in the Iraqi city of Dohuk on March 15, 2023.
Confirming the cooperation, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Bafel Talabani, sent Wahab Halabja, known as the “counter-terrorism commander,” to northern Syria on March 22, 2023, to attend the funeral of the terrorists who were killed in the helicopter accident.
Likewise, the repeated visits of the leader of the PKK/YPG, Farhat Abdi Shaheen, known as Mazloum Abdi, to Sulaymaniyah, and the pictures of Bafel Talabani giving a message of “unity” in the hideouts of the terrorist organization in northern Syria, are evidence that confirms the close cooperation between the two parties.
Talabani, invited Jamil Bayik, one of the leaders of the PKK/YPG, and Shaheen, to the meeting he held with the Kurdish political parties in the Dukan district of Sulaymaniyah on November 23, 2022.
The meeting was another example that highlights cooperation between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the terrorist PKK organization.
While the party seeks to obtain international legitimacy for its cooperation with the PKK under the name of “joint fight against ISIS,” the terrorist organization continues to benefit from the opportunities provided by the party to conduct arms shipments and logistics from Sulaymaniyah Airport to northern Syria.
PKK terrorist activities in Sulaymaniyah
From time to time, the organization’s members carry out terrorist acts, such as burning political party buildings in Sulaymaniyah and its suburbs, which are under the rule of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
In demonstrations that took place in January 2020, PKK terrorists destroyed the buildings of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party, the Gorran Movement, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the headquarters of public facilities, and set fire to the Sulaymaniyah Center and the buildings of the New Halabja, Rania, and Qaldiz municipalities.
The local press in the region also reported that PKK terrorists planned to seize many points in the region during the period from 8 to 20 July 2021.
On August 16, 2023, the unit established by the terrorist PKK organization under the name “Young Women Warriors and Patriotic Youth” carried out its first terrorist operations, by burning fields and orchards in Rania district in Sulaymaniyah.
Kurdistan Democratic Party official Haifa Jilani confirmed, in a statement on the matter, that the PKK “wants to spread chaos and war in the region” through this unit.
According to a statement by Dilshad Rashid Milla, a member of the general executive body of the Gorran Movement (the Movement for Change in the Kurdistan Region), Iraqi terrorists from the Qandil, Garmian and Sulaymaniyah regions participated in the unit structure established by the PKK on August 2, 2023 under the name “Kurdistan Self-Defense Force.” “.
Rashid Milla also pointed out that there is a link between the assassination of the Peshmerga commander “Mirza” in the Zakho region (Dohuk Governorate) on July 23, 2023, and the martyrdom of Othman Kuse, a diplomat who works at the Turkish Consulate General in Erbil, and the terrorist activities of this unit.
According to a statement by the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Dohuk, Ali Awni, in August 2023, the PKK may in the not-too-distant future begin establishing security points in Sulaymaniyah, and search ID cards even from the executives of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and other political party officials.
The presence of the PKK in the region undermines the economy of Sulaymaniyah
In parallel with the PKK finding a space for itself in Sulaymaniyah, Turkey closed its airspace to flights coming from and arriving at the city, which had a negative impact on the region’s economy.
Sulaymaniyah Airport, where thousands of people work, has now lost its “international” status due to the air embargo imposed by Turkey.
The PKK is a terrorist organization active in several countries in the region, including Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and Turkey is combating it in response to attacks it launches against its citizens and forces.
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