An uptick in attacks by Kurdish militant group the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has killed more than 40 Turkish soldiers in southeastern Turkey since the beginning of August. Media reports from both Turkey and Iraq have indicated that the Turkish government is interested in improving its existing military assets in northern Iraq as a way to attack PKK hideouts and prevent the kind of infiltration across Turkey's borders that has led to the increased casualties. Turkey first established a military presence in northern Iraq in the mid-1990s when a full-blown war was raging between rival Kurdish factions. Turkey supported the Kurdish Democratic Party led by the Barzani clan (Massoud Barzani is the current president of the Kurdistan Regional Government) against an alliance of the PKK and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by the Talabani clan (Jalal Talabani is Iraq's president). The U.S.-imposed cease-fire agreement signed in 1997 formalized Turkey's military presence. The main Turkish military base in northern Iraq is the Bamerni airfield located in Dahuk province. There are also several security checkpoints near the towns of Batufa and al-Amadiyah. Turkey is believed to have roughly 2,000 troops, a few dozen tanks and few helicopters in the area. Northern Iraq's mountainous geography plays to the advantage of a guerrilla force like the PKK against conventional military attacks, so the main duty of these units is intelligence gathering, rather than engaging PKK militants in combat. Increasing the number of troops in these areas would help Turkey improve its logistical support and monitoring for combatant troops that could be mobilized against the PKK.
