ANKARA — Turkey’s Defense Ministry on Thursday dismissed Iraqi First Lady Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed’s accusations against Turkish armed forces over its ongoing operations in northern Iraq against Kurdish militants.
“It is clear that these statements and accusations do not reflect the general sentiment in Iraq,” a high-level Turkish Defense Ministry official told reporters on background.
His remarks came in response to Ahmed, the wife of Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, accusing Turkey of causing the displacement of civilians in northern Iraq, as well as the destruction of large swaths of agricultural areas, during the Turkish armed forces’ operations against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants. Headquartered in northern Iraq, the PKK has been fighting against Turkish forces for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since the 1980s and is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
In an unusual effrontery, the first lady wrote on X that “innocent civilians are forced to flee their homes and find refuge in displacement camps.”
She also said that nearly 20 square kilometers of “agricultural land have been burned as a result of Turkish bombardment,” echoing similar claims that were reported by the US-based war monitor Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT).
The high-level Turkish official dismissed the accusations on Thursday as “unfounded.”
Turkey has recently stepped up its military operations in northern Iraq as part of Ankara’s efforts to set up a “security corridor” up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) wide along Turkey’s borders with Syria and Iraq, clearing the belt of PKK militants and their Syrian offshoots.
The Iraqi first lady’s sharp criticism came in stark contrast with the relatively low-key reaction to the ongoing operations when Iraq’s National Security Council earlier this month denounced “the interventions and violations by Turkish forces in shared border areas.”
In the past Baghdad often accused Ankara of killing of local civilians and destroying agricultural areas, demanding that Turkey cease its military operation inside of Iraq soil on the grounds that the operations were in violation of Iraqi sovereignty. But ahead of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Iraq in April, the council listed the PKK as a banned organization and pledged for more cooperation against the group in a major concession to a long-sought push from Turkey on the Iraqi government to designate the group as a terrorist organization.
“The Iraqi public should know if there is any agreement between Ankara and Baghdad, or Ankara and Erbil, which permits a neighboring country to treat Iraq as their own territory,” Ahmed wrote.
“If there is such an agreement, then public outrage should be directed at Iraqi or Kurdish authorities. But if there is no agreement, then should we not point our fingers at Turkey as an invader?” she asked.
Ahmed’s father was a leading member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two dominant political parties in the Kurdistan Regional Government. Turkey accuses the PUK of giving the PKK refuge in Sulaimaniyah, the northern Iraqi province controlled by the Kurdish political party. In April, Turkey closed off its airspace for flights to and from the international Sulaimaniyah airport in a bid to increase pressure on the PUK, which is headed by Bafel Talabani, the son of late Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
