Turkish tanks drill on Iraqi border week before Kurdish vote
Turkish tanks carried out drills at the Iraqi border on Monday, the army said, a week before a referendum across that frontier on Kurdish independence that Ankara has called a threat to its national security. The exercises came as Turkey, the central government in Baghdad and their shared neighbor Iran all stepped up protests and […]Tuvan Gumrukcu and Maher Chmaytelli write for Reuters:
Turkish tanks carried out drills at the Iraqi border on Monday, the army said, a week before a referendum across that frontier on Kurdish independence that Ankara has called a threat to its national security.
The exercises came as Turkey, the central government in Baghdad and their shared neighbor Iran all stepped up protests and warnings about the looming plebiscite in semi-autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq.
Iran, which like Turkey fears fuelling separatism in its own Kurdish population, warned of unspecified consequences if the vote went ahead.
