DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — In an interview with Al-Monitor, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said that the KRG may resort to force to make the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) withdraw from Sinjar. This has raised tensions in the area.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the PKK cannot share Sinjar. Administratively, Sinjar is not attached to the Kurdish region. It is one of the disputed locations whose status will be decided by a referendum. When the town close to the Syrian border in northern Iraq was occupied by the Islamic State (IS) in 2014, the PKK and KRG forces intervened together. After IS was ousted from the town, the PKK refused to leave, despite warnings from the KRG.
The problem of Sinjar rose between Syria and Iraq after World War I, when both countries demanded to control it. But after borders were demarcated, it was forgotten. The PKK appeared years later to make use of Sinjar’s proximity to the Syrian border. The fact that the majority of the people in Sinjar were Yazidis provided an edge to the PKK. According to Muslims, Yazidis are pagans who worship the devil. The PKK embraced the Yazidis, which provided the Kurdish organization with a popular base. In 1998, although some PKK members took up residence in Sinjar, they didn’t stay for long because of their internal problems: Syria recognized the PKK as a terrorist organization in 1998, and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad expelled PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. After 2000, the PKK tried once more to enter Sinjar, but that, too, was foiled under pressure from the United States and Turkey. The PKK was getting organized among the Yazidis, but it couldn’t settle down in the town. Why does the PKK want Sinjar so much?
Syria is why the PKK wants to control Sinjar. This became even more important after PKK-affiliated groups started to dominate the Kurdish-populated parts of Syria. Sinjar provides a defensive line and also a logistics hub for the area the PKK calls Rojava. Should the PKK control it, Sinjar would also become a key connection route between its camps in Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria.
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