A September 5^th strike carried out by a Turkish drone in Iraqi Kurdistan killed three in the Sulaimaniya region. This follows a handful of other attacks carried out by Türkiye, notably including an August 23^rd strike that killed two female Kurdish journalists. Türkiye regularly conducts strikes on members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) and has outposts in Iraqi territory that it has maintained over the last 25 years. In March, the Iraqi federal government in Baghdad named the P.K.K. a “banned organisation” and established military cooperation with Türkiye last month with plans to organize joint operations against the Kurdish militant group.

The district governor of Chwarta, Osman Anwar, told Agence France Presse (A.F.P.) on the 5^th that, “this afternoon, a drone attacked a pick-up, killing three people, including a child.” According to A.F.P., one victim was identified as a civilian farmer, while the other two had such severe burns that they were unable to be identified. Earlier in the week, the Turkish defense ministry said that it launched multiple strikes in the Iraqi Kurdistan region targeting the P.K.K. Regarding the August 23^rd strike, Turkish state media broadcasted a statement that the two women killed were in fact P.K.K. fighters. In a Facebook post, Kurdistan Region Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani wrote: “The victims of the drone attack near Said Sadiq district were two female journalists, not members of an armed force.” He also criticized the P.K.K. as a threat to stability in the region. Türkiye has continued to dispute the identities of those killed in its most recent strikes.

Türkiye’s targeting of civilians is unacceptable and will likely escalate the ongoing conflict further. To achieve lasting peace in the region, both Iraq and Türkiye will need to move towards a more permanent and practical territorial solution for the Kurdish people. For its part, the P.K.K. is hurting the Kurds’ cause by continuing to launch violent attacks.

The P.K.K. launched an attack in Türkiye in 1984, intending to establish a Kurdish state. Conflict has ebbed and flowed since then, and in July 2015, a significant ceasefire broke down, which marked the start of “one of [the conflict’s] deadliest chapters in nearly four decades,” according to the International Crisis Group. Since 2015, over 7,000 people have been killed in Iraq and Türkiye, including at least 631 civilians.

As strikes continue, the response of the P.K.K., the response of other Kurdish parties to the P.K.K., and the severity of future joint Turkish-Iraqi military operations will determine whether the region moves toward peace. It is likely that lasting peace will not be achieved until the Kurdish people have more formal and international recognition.

Read more about the Kurdish fight for independence on the Crisis Index page here.