Less than a week after Iraq and Turkey signed a comprehensive bilateral security agreement, the former shot down a military drone of the latter near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
This Friday night, the Iraqi air defense systems spotted out and then shot down a Turkish army drone near the northern city of Kirkuk. According to a statement by the Iraqi officials, the drone entered Iraqi airspace from the direction of Sulaymaniyah, violating Iraq’s sovereignty in sky.
“Air defense units detected the drone after it breached Iraqi airspace, and it was shot down as soon as it entered the target zone,” said Brigadier General Abdul Salam Hamoudi Ramadan, the Deputy Commander of Air Defense in the Northern Region.
He also noted that “the initial observation suggested the drone, beyond being used for monitoring and reconnaissance, could be used as a bomber because of its ability to carry four missiles. The orders were issued directly from Baghdad to shoot it down.”
But Iraq’s fury at Turkey’s provocative move didn’t end there, and a security source from Baghdad also strongly rebuked Turkey and told reporters that the explosion could have cost civilian lives. “The incident, which occurred in the densely populated Tese’in neighborhood, could have resulted in a catastrophe if the missile exploded,” he told Iraq’s Shafaq News Agency.
Turkey-Iraq brotherhood lasted less than a week!
Friday’s incident happened while less than a week ago, Baghdad and Ankara signed a “historic” security pact that promised a new era of comprehensive cooperation between the two countries.
The agreement, focused on military, security, and counter-terrorism cooperation, was expected to put an end to years of tensions over Turkey’s military actions against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq, which Ankara counts as terrorists. Intense clashes between the Turkish army and the PKK have, over recent days, forcibly displaced thousands of Kurdish villagers in northern Iraq and caused widespread destruction to agricultural land.
To read between the lines, the pact specifically calls for Turkey to hand over a military base in Bashiqa to the Iraqi government and for the two nations to build a joint military coordination center inside Iraq.
But the importance of the pact is way beyond security issues. Amid shared security concerns, Iraq has also launched an ambitious $17 billion project to transform itself into a regional transportation hub linking Europe with the Middle East with the help of Turkey.
The 1,200-kilometre ‘Route of Development’ project, from the Turkish border to the Gulf, aims to revitalize Iraq’s economy by upgrading its road and rail infrastructure. Friday’s incident, however, cast a huge shadow of doubt and second-thought about whether the two countries can get along and materialize what they have agreed on paper.
