Kurdish Anger Soars as Turkey Won’t Open Iraq Arms Corridor

Iraqi Kurds Seek to Send Arms to Syrian Factions

Kurdish factions are increasingly angry at the Turkish government tonight, after the Turkish military attacked Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters inside Turkey.

It goes well beyond that, however, with the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) reporting that it has sent weapons to Syrian Kurdish factions fighting ISIS, but that Turkey is refusing to allow the shipments through.

That makes sense as Turkey fears a new fight with the PKK and other Kurdish factions, and clearly doesn’t want to set the precedent of those factions getting arms from Iraq. Complaints that Kurdish fighters are also being stranded along the Syria-Turkey border are also adding to that anger.

The Turkish government and the PKK had been in the middle of a peace process aimed at ending decades of on-again, off-again war, but the US conflict with ISIS is adding to Kurdish expectations of imminent international aid, and when that aid isn’t as large or helpful as they’d hoped, Turkey seems to be the one facing the fallout from it.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.