When Turkey lined troops on the border with Iraq, Iran wasn't going to stand by and watch while Turkey got the upper hand in the area. Iran did what Iran needed to do and that was to take care of the PKK before Turkey did, so there was no reason for invasion into Iraq in the first place. PM Maliki however didn't like either country meddling.
Iraq's beleaguered prime minister on Sunday took a swipe at the governments of Turkey and Iran, both countries he has visited recently, and challenged their recent artillery bombardments inside Iraq in the Kurdish-dominated northern region where both the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the anti-Iranian Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK), linked to the PKK, have found refuge.
"The bombardments by Iran and Turkey are violations of Iraq's sovereignty. We will not allow these violations, but this must come through diplomatic channels. We will inform our brothers in Turkey and Iran about that through the Foreign Ministry," Maliki said at a news conference held in Baghdad.
Maliki's remarks came after Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül voiced support for a possible cross-border operation by neighboring Iran into Iraq to fight PEJAK there last week, saying countries have the right to defend their borders.
Some 2,000 families have reportedly fled mountainous northeast Iraq due to the Iranian shelling and have taken shelter in tents outside the zone. One resident said they left their village after PEJAK members told them there would be massive clashes in the region soon. "Unfortunately, terrorists have the ability to operate in Iraq's north due to a power vacuum in Iraq," Gül told a press conference in response to a question on reports that Iran was preparing for an incursion into Iraq. "They pose a threat to Turkey as well as to other neighbors; therefore, every country has the right to defend its borders and take legitimate measures for its own security," he said. In recent days news reports on Iraqi Kurdish Web sites and Turkish agencies said Iran's army crossed the border into neighboring Iraq and shelled the Kandil Mountains, located in northern Iraq, where PEJAK has camps.
