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TURKEY-IRAN-KURDS
Iran denies joint raid with Turkey against Kurd rebels
TEHRAN, March 19, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Iran has denied a claim by the Turkish
interior minister that it took part in a joint operation on Monday targeting
Kurdish rebels in the border area.
In recent weeks, Ankara has talked up the prospects of joint military
action with Tehran against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its allies
but Monday marked the first time it had spoken of a joint operation being
carried out.
“Iran’s armed forces have no role in this operation,” the official IRNA
news agency quoted an “informed source” in the general staff as saying on
Monday evening.
However Iran “will forcefully confront any group that seeks to create
unrest on our country’s soil,” the source added.
Earlier on Monday, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said: “We
started staging a joint operation with Iran against the PKK on our eastern
border as of 8 am (0500 GMT)”.
Soylu did not specify where the joint operation was taking place but
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said previously that joint military action
would focus on PKK rear bases in Iraq near where the three countries’ borders
meet.
The Turkish military has carried out repeated bombing campaigns against
PKK targets in Iraq’s northern mountains during its more than three-decade
campaign to crush the rebels’ campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern
Turkey.
In recent years, Tehran too has carried out operations in northern Iraq
against suspected rear bases of the PKK’s Iran-focused ally, the Party of
Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).
PJAK is one of a number of Kurdish rebel groups that have fought the
Iranian security forces in ethnic Kurdish districts along the border.
Another PKK ally, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), is the main Kurdish
armed group in Syria where, to the fury of Ankara, it has been a key ally in
the US-led campaign against the jihadists of the Islamic State group which is
now drawing to a close.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1346 hrs