Alwaght- The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group says it has arrested two Turkish intelligence officials in Iraq, claiming the officers of Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) were planning to assassinate one of its prominent leaders in Iraq.
ANF news agency cited Rojnews as saying that, Diyar Xerib, a member of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) - a PKK-affiliated transnational body – has confirmed on Monday that they had captured two MIT officers last week, refraining from identifying them.
“Turkey should be glad we haven’t shown the people we captured in the media yet. We could just parade them to the press now and publish their names,” Xerib told Rojnews.
"The PKK could put these MIT operatives who wanted to turn Sulaymaniyah into a city of chaos and the center of terror attacks against PKK administrators in front of the cameras," he warned.
Diyar Xerib, General Presidential Council member of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK)
"The reason the PKK hasn’t done so is that they don’t want to make the people of Sulemaniyah and the PUK look guilty. But if there is a need, the operatives could be put in front of the cameras now,” he Xerib said.
Ankara has not made any comments about the reported arrests.
The news comes following the expulsion of Behroz Galali, the Ankara representative of the PUK, a Sulaymaniyah-based Iraqi Kurdish party, from Turkey.
The PUK is seen as being somewhat closer to the PKK than Iraqi Kurdistan’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
Xerib said Turkey deported Behroz Galali because Ankara blamed MIT's assassination operation failure on the PUK, accusing the party of leaking information to the PKK.
However, Speaking to a news conference upon his arrival in Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, Galali implied that the closure of the Ankara office of the PUK was linked to Turkey’s opposition to an upcoming referendum on independence of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.
Kurdistan is to hold the plebiscite on September 25.
The central government in Baghdad is opposed to the vote, while regional players like Iran and Turkey have also expressed concerns about the planned referendum, arguing it could create further instability in the region.
Turkey’s fierce opposition to the idea of an independent Kurdistan comes amid its large-scale military crackdown against suspected PKK militants at home and in northern Iraq.
The PKK has fought the Turkish government for more than three decades; an insurgency that Ankara says is mostly originated from mountainous regions in northern Iraq. Ankara views the PKK as a terrorist organization.
More than 15 million Kurds live in Turkey, most of them in areas bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria in the south.
