Members of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Parliament made a press statement with regards to the Turkish occupation of the Kurdish land from the past years to date.

The statement by MPs Salar Mahmud, Ali Hama Salih, Abu Karwan, Gesha Dara Hafeed, Bestoon Fayaq, Najeeba Sheikh Lateef, Omer Hynayat Hama-Said, Bahar Abdul Rahman, Dr. Rewaz Faiaq Hussein, Dr. Sherko Mohamed Amin, Abubakr Haladny, Shkurea Asmaeel and Abdulrahman Ali said the following;

“We, the representatives of the Kurdish people have repeatedly raised and directed our voice towards the Kurdish authority at the KRG parliament, the KRG government, the leading political parties and the Federal Government of Iraq to prevent Turkey’s military border crossing and violation of Iraqi sovereignty within the KRG’s territorial control. As there have not yet been any response, the state of Turkey is attempting to lay further foundation and taking control over the region by deploying further troops and establishing military bases and intelligence offices in the region. To the extent that the Turkish Gendarmerie are presenting military parade in the villages within the Hewler (the Capital of KRG) governorate, simply treating the occupied land as their own territory. As such our aim, through this announcement, is to reveal the existential threat against the Kurdish people.

We ask all the relevant bodies to stand and take serious action against this violation of international law and explicitly reject the injustice and ask the Turkey’s troop to withdraw from our land. Particularly, the political authority must explicitly stand against Turkey’s foreign policy in the region. The political parties should preserve their independence and avoid any collaboration or siding with the intentions of Turkey as an occupier. We ask the KRG parliament to set up an emergency meeting to discuss these matters related to the violation of the internal and international law. They must call upon nation states to help the Kurds and the KRG and task the Kurdistan parties to prepare to protect the Kurdish land. Especially, the implementation of the Decision Number (37) of the 2003 of the Parliament Act which is specific to withdrawal of Turkey’s troops from the KRG land.

In the past years, the government of Turkey and Iran have violated the KRG territorial control and its air space, providing unreasonable justifications for their actions and have committed different international crimes including killing of Kurdish civilians and have forcibly displaced the Kurdish villagers.

As such, the Government of the Iraqi National Assembly and the KRG must take on the responsibility to force Turkey to withdraw its forces from Iraq.

We request from the various consulates in Hewler and the office of the United Nations to play a role in protecting Kurdistan. The occupation in the past have always remained secretive, however, the recent military parade of the Turkish army is the start of an explicit invasion of the KRG. It is an attack on the will of the Kurdish people who are unable to accept it.

Regretfully, the political will and the governmental system in the KRG continue to conceal the injustice and the invasion of the Turkish army. Our people should consciously resist this invasion through all the civil mechanisms available and exercise them in the KRG and abroad.”