Who's fighting whom in Iraq's Sinjar?
After KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani warned that the KRG may resort to force to expel the Kurdistan Workers Party from Sinjar, tensions rose in the region.
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.
