by Steve Sweeney

in Slemani, Iraqi Kurdistan

FIGHTING intensified in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRI) today as Turkey’s genocide operation hit a setback.

A military base in Diyarbakir was targeted in the early hours, but Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu was quick to respond, saying that two drones had been “neutralised” in an attack on the base in the largely Kurdish city in Turkey’s south-east.

No immediate claims of responsibility were made for the attack, but a source told the Morning Star that there had been “massive damage” as a result of the operation.

Heavy fighting was reported in the Metina and Avasin areas of the KRI’s mountainous Duhok province, with Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) spokesman Heval Azad telling the Morning Star that Turkish troops “cannot take a hold” due to the resistance of Kurdish guerilla fighters.

“If they are successful here in south Kurdistan, then Rojava [the largely Kurdish enclave in northern Syria] will be next,” he said, adding: “They [Turkey] aim to destroy our movement and the resistance to the genocide of the Kurdish people.”

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters have vowed to fight to the last drop of blood to prevent Turkey from carrying out its ethnic-cleansing operation.

Ankara’s latest military operations began on April 23, the anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide in 1915 in which 1.5 million men, women and children were systematically exterminated under Ottoman rule.

Turkey has been accused of deploying chemical weapons and bringing jihadist militia from Syria into the ranks of its armed forces, to almost universal silence among the international community.

Hundreds of Kurdish villagers have been forced to flee incessant bombing, with their homes reportedly being taken over by Islamists and their families as Turkey seeks a demographic change similar to the one carried out in Afrin in Rojava.

But Mr Azad said that Turkey was not acting independently, insisting that the war on Kurds has become “Nato policy,” with world powers ambitious to take control of resources and exert regional domination.

He explained that the latest Turkish attacks came soon after government officials met their counterparts in Britain and Germany and a phone call between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Joe Biden.

“These powers have given the green light to Turkey’s attacks on Kurdistan. They have approved the operation,” Mr Azad said.

Last month Mr Biden reinstated a bounty on the heads of senior PKK cadres Cemil Bayik, Murat Karayilan and Duran Kalkan — a  move that experts say is contrary to international law.

“They want to kill the leaders of our movement to destroy us,” Mr Azad said.

An international call has been made to stop the genocide of Kurds and the occupation of the KRI. People are asked to raise their voices and sign and circulate a petition which can be found here.