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The Grand Turk
Iran denies joint raid with Turkey against Kurdish rebels
2019-03-20
“Wudn’t us!”
[IsraelTimes] Military operation aimed at PKK bases near border shared by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire....
, Iraq and Iran


Iran has denied a claim by the Ottoman 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, Ottoman 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 Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
has said previously that joint military action would focus on PKK rear bases in Iraq near where the three countries’ borders meet.

The Ottoman 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 gang 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
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group which is now drawing to a close.
Posted by:trailing wife

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