President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to the media during a joint press conference with President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy on March 8, 2024, in Istanbul, Turkey. (Chris McGrath, Getty Images/TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — Turkey is looking to expand its cross-border military operation against Kurdish militants in Iraq as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan courts more nationalist voters ahead of this month’s local elections.
Turkey and Iraq are in talks to jointly crack down on hideouts of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has long battled for an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey, Defense Minister Yasar Guler said Monday.
Turkey has employed a so-called inkblot military strategy to seize control of the rugged Iraqi border area, creating more than 100 army outposts in the region. That fits with Erdogan’s goal to create a cross-border buffer zone with Iraq and Syria to combat the threat of Kurdish separatism from both countries.
“We are fully determined to create a 30-40 kilometer deep security corridor along our borders,” Guler was cited as saying by Turkish media on Monday. “This summer, we will complete the circle that will secure our Iraq border and eradicate the terrorism problem.”
An expanded military operation could ensure Erdogan the support of the MHP, a nationalist party whose leaders have allied with the president’s AK Party, in the run-up to local elections on March 31. Nationalists account for about 10% of the electorate in Turkey.
Erdogan needs to shore up nationalist support to try and regain control of major cities, including Istanbul and Ankara, which he lost to the main opposition party in 2019 polls. If he could win them back, Erdogan may feel strong enough to rewrite the constitution to make it easier for him to retain the presidency in future national elections, where he currently needs more than half of the votes cast.
Military escalation
After dozens of Turkish soldiers in Iraq were killed in attacks in December and January that Turkey blamed on the PKK, Erdogan vowed to step up military operations against both the PKK and its offshoot, the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, in Syria.
“We will take new steps to fill the gaps in this corridor,” Erdogan said, referring to areas outside the control of Turkey’s military and allied Syrian rebels within Syria.
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