Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that a joint Turkish-Iranian military offensive against Kurdish militants based on Qandil Mountain in northern Iraq is imminent.
The Associated Press is quoting Erdogan as saying “there is no question of postponement” of the joint operations. Erdogan added that Turkey and Iran are “working together and determined” to defeat the Kurdish rebels in Qandil.
“I regret to say this but there will be a price for it,” Erdogan added, apparently in reference to possible military losses during the upcoming offensive [AP, 25 September].
In July, Iran launched its own offensive against the Iranian-Kurdish militant group PJAK. That offensive is still ongoing. IRGC lost a senior general officer earlier this month during those clashes.
Meanwhile, Turkey today stopped natural gas imports from Iran. Turkey’s state-owned oil and gas company, BOTAS, said repairing possible damages to Iran-Turkey pipeline necessitated its action. BOTAS provided no further details, but the Kurdish militants on both sides of the border have in the past few months taken responsibility for attacks on the pipeline, causing major explosions and temporary disruption in the flow of the natural gas.
UPDATE: The natural gas export to Turkey was recommenced on Friday 30 September [Press TV].
PleSE DONOT MANIpulate the news
ReplyDelete"working together and determined” to defeat the Kurdish rebels in Qandil"
that is non-specific statement
does notmean a joint iran-turkey operation.
Iran and turks are not good freind these days.
This story is based on direct quotations from Turkish Premier Erdogan. may I suggest that you contact the prime minister's office in Ankara if you have a problem with what he has said (or quoted).
ReplyDeleteIran is once again falling for a turkish trap. Turks are no friends of Iran look at the missile shield and thier position on syria. If Iran witness's something similar to syria god forbid, anyone think the turks are going to support the Iranian government? Why does Iran have to sacrifice our soldiers to fight against a group that fights tukey? pjak is or has almost been defeated let the turks fight their own battles. Better to support the KRG in northern Iraq so they can step up and co-defend the border between Iran and the Iraqi Kurdistan region. We dont need the Turkish/nato/israeli backed liars to decieve Iran again.
ReplyDeleteSmoke and mirrors. Iran has provided covert support to the PKK for years, I suspect that the Turks have a similar arangement with the PJAK. The US and Israel support them both! Turkish-Iranian cooperation is something that looks good on a press release, but that's about it.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all where is our $18.5 Billion which was taken in a Iranian truck across the Turkish border and confiscated by Turkish authorities ?
ReplyDeleteSecondly let the Turkish fight their own wars because they are two faced as usual and are known backstabbers!!
Thirdly once this fascist theocracy which has no interest in preserving Iranian national honour is overthrown by the Iranian nation we will deal with Turkey and the Arabs with our economic and human resource superiority.
---"Turks are no friends of Iran look at the missile shield and thier position on syria."---
ReplyDeleteTurkey's position on Syria, calling for the ouster of Assad, was arrived at reluctantly and is a position on Syria, not one on Iran.
Turkey may be no friend of Iran's but why shouldn't they co-operate where their interests co-incide?
Since Erdogan is playing the Islamic card on the cheap and superseded Iran as the champion of Islamic revivalism despite all the money Iran wasted in the last 32 years on Palestinians and Lebanese causes let him put Turkeys money on behalf of Iran's causes and open the gates to all the mullahs to emigrate to Turkey so that Iran can be left in peace and we have their Kurds in return.
ReplyDelete