Yazidis in Iraq's Sinjar brace for possible Turkish attack
The Yazidi community, which only recently faced Islamic State attacks, is now getting ready for a Turkish military operation in Sinjar announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
KHANASOOR, Iraq — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said March 25 that Turkey had begun operations against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the Sinjar region in northern Iraq. “We said we would go into Sinjar. Now operations have begun there. The fight is internal and external,” Erdogan said before a crowd in Turkey's Trabzon province.
Two days prior to Erdogan's statement, PKK fighters began withdrawing from Sinjar in order to avoid the targeting of civilians in the area.
For Dezhwar, a young Yazidi fighter in the Sinjar area, the silence of the international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) regarding the all-out Turkish attack on the city of Afrin, home to a sizable Yazidi community, was a bitter reminder that in the game of realpolitik between states, minorities such as the Yazidis have no one to turn to.
Despite the Turkish president's threats, Iraq's Joint Operations Command said late March 25 that no foreign forces had crossed the border into Iraq and there were no reports of unusual military activity.
