Iraq downs Turkish drone over airspace violation, army says
The statement comes less than two weeks after Ankara and Baghdad signed security cooperation deal, and as Turkish officials are preparing to host Iraqi, Emirati and Qatari officials for a major trade corridor project that will connect Iraq and Turkey.
ANKARA — An Iraqi commander said Thursday that the Iraqi army shot down a Turkish drone over its northern airspace less than two weeks after the two countries signed a major military cooperation deal.
In a widely circulated video on social media, Brig. Gen. Abdul Salam Hamoudi Ramadan, who introduced himself as deputy commander of the Air Defense Force in the northern region, says the drone was downed after violating Iraqi airspace. “A Turkish drone that entered Iraqi airspace from Sulaimaniyah has been downed,” he said.
“It violated our airspace. It came to the Cimen region via Sulaimaniyah,” he added. There was no formal statement from either Ankara or the Iraqi government as of this writing.
Irak’tan ilk resmi açıklama.
Türk İHA’sı olduğunu, Irak Hava Savunma Gücü Komutan Yardımcısı Abdülselam Hammud açıkladı. pic.twitter.com/vB1QZJDVnm— Reşat Salihi (@resatmuhtaroglu) August 29, 2024
Turkish drones are frequently seen in northern Iraqi airspace as they conduct targeted attacks on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants. This incident marks the first time a Turkish drone has been shot down by the Iraqi military.
Headquartered in the mountains of northern Iraq, the PKK has been waging an armed campaign against Turkey for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984.
Local Iraqi news outlets reported that the drone fell in the front yard of a house in Kirkuk and that no casualties were reported. The northeastern province of Kirkuk — bordering Sulaimaniyah province — has long been disputed between its multiple ethnic communities, including Turkmens. Last week, Rebwar Taha, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan who Turkey has accused of collaborating with the PKK, was elected as the governor of the city. The PUK, one of the two dominant political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, also controls Sulaimaniyah, located west of Kirkuk.
Turkey’s airspace has been closed to flights to and from Sulaimaniyah airport since April 2023.
Local reports identified the downed drone as an Aksungur, manufactured by Turkish Aerospace Industries. It remains unclear whether the drone was armed.
'Historic' security deal
The reports of the downing come less than two weeks after Ankara and Baghdad signed a security deal to strengthen their cooperation and coordination in Turkey’s fight against the PKK.
The Memorandum of Understanding on Military, Security, and Counterterrorism Cooperation, signed on Aug. 16, included an agreement to build a joint military coordination center for Ankara and Baghdad to be based in Iraq, as well as to turn the Turkish military base in the northern Iraqi town of Bashiqa over to the Iraqi government.
Both Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Iraqi counterpart, Fuad Hussein, hailed the agreement as “historic” during their joint press conference in Ankara on the same day.
After decades of slamming Turkish military operations against the PKK as violations of its sovereignty, Baghdad banned the group in March, partly giving in to Turkish pressure to designate the group as a terrorist organization. In addition to Ankara, Washington and the majority of European capitals consider the PKK a terror outfit.
In April, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid his first visit to Iraq in over a decade. During Erdogan’s visit, Turkey, Iraq, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates signed a deal for a major transit corridor project called Development Road.
As the Iraqi commander announced the downing of the drone, officials from the four countries were readying to gather in Istanbul on Thursday for a second high-level talk on the project to link Basra's al-Faw port, which is currently under construction, to Turkey via a 1,275-kilometer (792-mile) rail and road network.
