PEREGRAF
Kurdish parliamentarians call on the Kurdistan regional government to take action on Turkish occupying army cutting and destroying forests in Duhok Provence.
As Turkish attacks and bombardments continue on the territory of the Kurdistan region, which has caused great damage to the environment and nature of the border areas and burned a part of the forests, Turkish army "cut down and steal trees" from dense forests.
The areas where Turkey has crossed the Kurdistan region's territory and set up military bases are mountainous, steep and contain dense forests, justifying hitting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The Kurdish parliamentarians in Kurdistan and Iraq are calling for a halt to Turkey's attacks, especially for deforestation.
"With evidence from Turkish pirates (Turkish army) in the Sindhia area of Zakho district, they cut down and steal trees in the area," said Hevidar Ahmed, a member of the Kurdistan Parliament.
"We are shouting those trees are over 100 years old, in the villages of (Sanath, Merga Shish, Shish and Kalok, Massis, etc.) We are asking the Kurdistan Regional Government to take diplomatic and legal action. "We are asking the international community to stop cutting those trees."
Parliamentarians have begun to collect signatures so that the Kurdistan Parliament can hold a special session on the Turkish operation, the destruction of Kurdistan's forests, and the creation of a national stance to prevent Turkey from doing so.
Ali Hama Salih, a member of Kurdistan parliament, “says the Turkish army's occupation of part of the territory of southern Kurdistan, some of them burn part of our forests, and others cut down their trees and return them to Turkey, where there are about 450 tons of trees being cut down every day”.
The government and parliament in Kurdistan and Iraq have no official stance on the cutting of trees and running the environment and the nature of Kurdistan by Turkey.
Kurdish parliamentarians want to put pressure on Turkey from Baghdad. “With my colleague MP Ghalib Mohemmed Ali, officially requested parliamentary investigation into Turkish military incursion, especially its attempt to destroy the forests.," said Kurdish MP Sarkawt Shamsaddin in the Iraqi parliament.
Turkish Gendarmerie’s joint air and ground operations have been ongoing for years in Duhok and Badinan, which the Ankara government justifies as anti-Guerrilla operations targeting the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in order to establish peace and security.
"The shelling by Turkish warplanes on PKK has increased and our lives were in danger. So we left our village and now live in the center of Duhok," Ramazan Yahya, a resident of Banstana village in Amedi district, told PEREGRAF.
Ramazan’s village is one of the areas found on the battleground for the Turkish operations, under the pretext that the PKK is in the territory of the Kurdistan Region.
"People don't like to leave their village. We have lived there for a lifetime. We have adopted its culture and invested in livestock. I left my house, the vineyard, the grapes, the pickles and apples, which had an income of about three million dinars a year. Now we can't even go back to bring our produce. We just go to there for a while and come back to Duhok in the evening," said Ramazan.
He calls for a solution to this unstable situation and requests that at least they receive compensation for their losses.
Turkey's last air and ground operation intended at the Duhok border, which began on April 23, 2021 in the region's land, is ongoing such that fighting with PKK has taken place in several places, without any intervention on the part of the regional government.