Quote:
Originally Posted by Ike Bana
Anyway, one day I mentioned my disgust at this country's convenient attitude toward the PKK one day...Shaukat listened quietly. And when I was done, his only comment was, "Doesn't matter if they're in Turkey or in Iraq, they're Taliban."
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But he's mistaken. The PKK are pretty much a secular and vaguely communist organization. They also have a strong feminist element in their ideology and even have women fighters in their ranks. (This scares the hell out of ISIS. The thought of being killed by a woman makes them wet their pants.)
Also, the PKK presence in Iraq has been sparse and contested until ISIS began knocking on the door of the Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq. There was open hostility, and occasional combat, between the PKK and the Peshmerga forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Now the PKK and Peshmerga are conducting joint operations against ISIS. They are also an important force in the fight against ISIS in Syria, though the Turkish government has inexplicably taken steps to prevent PKK fighters from leaving Turkey to join the fight against ISIS.
John