A member of the Patriotic Union of Iraqi Kurdistan, Ali Varhan, announced on Wednesday that Turkey has increased its military presence in the Haj Imran district of Erbil province.
In an interview with Almaalomah, he stated that Turkish forces have initiated a series of strange movements in the Kurdistan region since yesterday, which included the re-establishment of various military bases in the region.
Without elaborating on Ankara's main purpose, Varhan added, "Turkish forces are building new military bases in the border strip and deploying surveillance systems, and at the same time, new forces and equipment enter these bases."
He went on to say that all these movements are carried out without any coordination with the Kurdistan Government or the border guard forces in the region.
Since mid-June 2020, Turkey has launched a number of large-scale attacks against elements of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) inside northern Iraq which inflicted numerous casualties and led to the evacuation of many border villages in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
Erbil and the Iraqi central government condemned the move and Baghdad even summoned the Turkish ambassador, however, Ankara has not yet stopped military operations on Iraqi soil.
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