Why Turkey's Kurdish strategy will remain ineffective
While making moves to crush the Kurds’ de facto self-rule in northern Syria, Turkey has targeted also the Makhmour refugee camp in Iraq, which, ironically, holds a mirror to Ankara’s failed Kurdish policies over the years.
Over the past decade, Turkey has pursued a "break and dent" strategy against the Kurds, by which the Turkish government seeks to dismantle Kurdish groups and push resistant factions into neighboring Syria and Iraq. Turkey has now come to rely on this strategy outside its border, particularly in the northern Syrian region of Afrin. Based on this approach, Ankara aims to “cleanse” all northeastern Syrian territories held by the People’s Protection Units, or the YPG. Yet this "break and dent" strategy is futile, and the Mahkmour refugee camp in Iraq, set up by Turkish Kurds banished from their native villages more than two decades ago, is an example of its futility.
On Dec. 13, a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced plans for a military operation east of the Euphrates in Syria, Turkish jets targeted Sinjar and Makhmour in Iraq. According to Ankara, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community — is using the Makhmour camp as a base. Officials of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the dominant political force in Iraqi Kurdistan, pointed out that UN rules require the camp to not harbor armed elements.
