SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) on Thursday released a statement regarding Turkey’s airspace embargo on Sulaimani province.
Turkey on Tuesday announced a ban on flights from and to Sulaimani International Airport due to alleged intensifications of Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) activities in Sulaimani province.
The official media of the PUK released a statement, saying Turkey’s flight ban on Sulaimani is related to “Kurdayati”, the commitment to the Kurdish struggle.
“The justification for the decision is that the PUK helped Kurds in Rojava,” the statement said. “The PUK’s struggle is for broader Kurdistan, it’s a nationwide struggle.”
The statement stressed that the PUK is always ready to help the other parts of Kurdistan whenever there is an existential threat such as terrorism “like the way it did in defending Erbil from the Islamic State (ISIS) offensives in 2014 and sending forces to the Kurdish city of Kobane in Rojava to defeat ISIS.”
Ankara’s embargo is simply based on allegations that the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the dominant party in Sulaimani province, supports the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the province, allowing it to operate freely.
The PKK is a Kurdish group fighting for broader rights in Turkey which Ankara, the United States, and the European Union have designated a “terrorist” organization.
“The PUK has always paid the price of honesty and has constantly helped the Kurds in other regions,” head of Sulaimani provincial council Azad Mohammed Amid said in a statement to Esta.
“Sulaimani has been always sanctioned and flights to Turkey have been suspended as a result of the PUK’s positions in defending the rights of the Kurds in broader Kurdistan,” he added.
