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Baghdad's row with Ankara could benefit each side

Turkey’s latest military operation against Kurdish militants based in northern Iraq has triggered harsh reactions from Baghdad but also opened room for dialogue between the militaries of the two sides.
Iraqi kurds, some of them wearing protective masks due to COVID-19, march during a demonstration to denounce the Turkish assault in northern Iraq, in Sulaimaniyah city, in the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq, on June 18, 2020. - Turkey launched a rare ground assault into northern Iraq on June 17, deploying special forces against rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which is blacklisted by Ankara as a "terrorist" group. Baghdad demanded Ankara immediately halt its assault in northern Ira
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Turkey’s drive to establish a “security corridor” against Kurdish groups along its southern borders — all the way from Afrin in northwestern Syria to the Qandil mountains in northeastern Iraq — is unfazed despite military and political predicaments. Since mid-June, the Turkish military has been targeting Kurdish militant bases in northern Iraq in operations dubbed Claw-Eagle and Claw-Tiger, following operations Claw-1-2-3 conducted last year, along with Operation Peace Spring in the enclave between Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ain in Syria.

The ongoing onslaught against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has relied on bases in northern Iraq in its long-running armed campaign against Ankara, stands out from previous operations in terms of its implications on the ground and the reactions it has provoked. Turkey has targeted the PKK inside Iraq since the 1990s. 

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