Barzani visits Erdoğan as Turkey launches airstrikes in KRG, northern Syria

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted Nechirvan Barzani, the president of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), at the Presidential Complex in Ankara yesterday (February 2).

Barzani's non-scheduled visit coincided with Turkey's massive airstrikes with fighter jets and drones on several locations in the KRG, as well as in northern Syria.

Earlier yesterday, Ankara announced the "Winter Eagle" operation targeting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

More than 80 targets in three locations were hit in yesterday's airstrikes, Erdoğan said in a speech at the meeting of a business group. "They couldn't even find a hole to escape to," he said.

Warplanes taking off from six different bases, tanker planes, Airborne Warning Control planes and drones were used in the operations, according to the Ministry of National Defense. Airstrikes hit Sinjar and Karacak in Iraq and Derik in Syria.

Minister Hulusi Akar conducted the operation at the Airforce Operation Center and "shelters, hideouts, caves, tunnels, ammunition depots, so-called headquarters and so-called training camps were damaged" by airstrikes, according to the ministry.

The army "paid utmost attention" in order to protect the lives and properties of civilians and the environment, said the ministry.

It further noted that a building where PKK executives held meetings was "leveled" but did not specify whether there was any person in the building at the time of the airstrike.

Civilian casualties

According to reports from new outlets based in the region, however, there were three civilian casualties in Shingal.

Also, two people defending the Makhmur Refugee Camp and four members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in the airstrikes, according to reports.

Turkey and its allies, the Syrian National Army, also attacked Tel Rifaat, a town with SDF presence, with artillery and mortar shells yesterday.

"They want to expel Ezidis from Shingal"

Xwedêda Elîyas, the co-chair of the Sinûnê Assembly in Iraq's Shingal, said the purpose of the attacks was to "clear Shingal from Ezidis."

No attacks on the region could be independent from the October 2020 agreement between Erbil and Baghdad to "eliminate the Ezidi administration in Shingal," he told Mesopotamia Agency (MA).

He accused Iraq's PM Mustafa Al-Kadhimi of "trying to start a civil war in Shingal" and said, "But the Ezidis are not what they were in 2014."

"Today, the Ezidis rule themselves. We don't need the power of anybody. Ezidis won't leave their lands whatever happens," he added.

Meanwhile, the airstrikes were protested in Shingal, as well as in Helsinki and Cologne. (AEK/VK)