Turkish troops dug in on the country’s southern border with Kurdish-run northern Iraq on Tuesday, where authorities planned a referendum in support of independence.
The Iraq Supreme Court suspended the vote on Monday but the Kurdish authorities appear to be moving ahead with the referendum.
Turkey’s military drill, launched without warning on Monday, is due to last until September 26, Turkish military sources said. The referendum in support of Kurdish independence was initially scheduled for September 25.
Tanks and rocket launchers mounted on armoured vehicles faced the Iraqi frontier, about 2 kilometres (one mile) away. Mechanical diggers tore up agricultural fields for the army to set up positions in the flat, dry farmlands.
KRG response
Kurdish authorities are showing no sign of relenting despite intense international pressure and regional appeals, not least from allied Washington, to call off the vote.
Baghdad says the referendum would be unconstitutional and a prelude to breaking up the country.
Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said on Monday he would proceed with the vote in the absence of any international guarantee that Baghdad would hold talks on Kurdish independence.
Turkey’s show of force
One reporter saw four armoured vehicles carrying heavy weaponry and soldiers taking positions in specially dug areas, their weapons directed across the border, on Tuesday. A generator and satellite dish could be seen at one location.
The show of force reflects the scale of concern in Turkey, which has the largest Kurdish population in the region, that the vote could embolden the PKK. Considered a terror organisation by Ankara, Washington and Brussels, the PKK has waged a three-decade armed campaign in Turkey’s southeast.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last week Ankara would not shy away from using force if necessary.
Turkey has brought forward to Friday a cabinet meeting and a session of its national security council to consider possible action.
Turkey has long seen itself as protector of the ethnic Turkmen minority, with particular concern about the city of Kirkuk where Kurds have extended their control since seizing the city when Daesh overwhelmed Iraqi forces in 2014.
Police deployed in Kirkuk
Kurdish security and the city police erected checkpoints across Kirkuk after a Kurd was killed in a clash with the guards of a Turkmen political party office in the city.
Two other Kurds and a Turkmen security guard were wounded in the clash that broke out when a Kurdish convoy celebrating the referendum, carrying Kurdish flags, drove by the Turkmen party office, according to security sources.
The Kurdish dead and wounded were among those celebrating, they said.
The military exercises came as Turkey, the central government in Baghdad and their shared neighbour Iran all stepped up protests and warnings about the independence referendum in the semi-autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq.
The United States and other Western countries have also voiced concerns and asked Barzani to call off the vote, citing fears the referendum could distract attention from the fight against Daesh.
Iraq’s Supreme Federal Court ordered Barzani to suspend the vote and approved Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi’s demand to consider “the breakaway of any region or province from Iraq as unconstitutional”, his office said on Monday.
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