Turkey incursion into Iraq constitutes act of aggression: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a former Iraqi national security adviser, in Baghdad, to discuss Turkey’s violation of Iraqi sovereignty by deploying several hundred troops to northern Iraq.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: I want to get your opinion on this. What exactly is the Turkish game plan in Iraq?

Rubaie: Well, the Turks need to remember that Iraq is a sovereign independent state and it has internationally recognized borders and they have absolutely no right to do any military incursion through that borders and they were given before... before 2003 by Saddam Hussein, they were given the right to go and bomb the PKK bases in the northern part of Iraq but that permission has expired and now they have developed this even to more dangerous phase or stage, which is actually boots on the ground. They entered through the internationally recognized borders and now the game there is really a mysterious one despite the fact that this is illegal act and this is an act of aggression by Turkey against Iraq. Are they after the PKK fighters? Are they… what they are claiming is that they want to train the tribal fighters to liberate Nineveh and Mosul or are they operating against Daesh? We doubt it very much if they are operating against Daesh. We believe that the Turks have ulterior motives here and we have some signs now that this battalion who has stormed through the borders, they are starting to pull out from inside Iraq but they have not finished the pulling out. What did they do? They were not there before and now they wanted to find a foothold in the northern side of Iraq.

Press TV: For a while now, we have seen that Turkey has preferred dealing with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over the Baghdad central government and you have spoken about Turkish motives a bit in your first answer there. Can you expand on that? Why is Turkey doing this?

Rubaie: Well, the KRG is not an independent country. It is part of Iraq, Kurdistan of Iraq and it is a federal unit of Iraqi government, of federal government and any neighboring country – Turkey, Iran, Syria, Saudi [Arabia] or any other foreign country for that matter, not only neighboring country – they should deal with the federal government in Baghdad and if they want to help the KRG, any help has to go through and exclusively through the federal government of Iraq in Baghdad.

And I am afraid the Turks have not been playing the proper fair bargains,  and over the last ten years or so, they have been trying to make their economic interest, political power through the KRG in Kurdistan of Iraq.

But I can tell you this will backfire so soon. Honestly, we can see the Kurds inside Turkey are going to be emboldened. The PKK, whether they are in Iraq or YPG in Syria, are going to go in Turkey and also even Daesh fighters, this terrorist organization... you will see them in the streets, in the backstreets of Istanbul and Ankara in no time from now.

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