SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — Information on the reported seizure of two Turkish spies by members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) near the city of Sulaimaniyah on Aug. 3 is scarce, as Turkey stays silent and the PKK and the Iraqi Kurds refrain from divulging details about what happened. 

Iraqi Kurdistan has been a battlefield between the PKK and Turkey since the early 1990s. The PKK has used the rugged mountains of northern Iraq as a hideout since the early 1980s and has clashed several times with various other Kurdish groups including the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) over territory and influence. Staging several cross-border operations since the mid-1990s, Turkey has developed limited special operations capabilities and independent intelligence activities on the ground in the Kurdistan region.

Since August 2014, when attacks by the Islamic State threatened the very foundations of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the PKK has gained widespread popularity among Kurds by deploying hundreds of its battle-hardened fighters to defend Iraqi Kurdistan and the Yazidis of Sinjar. A group of former PKK commanders established a formidable army across the border in Syria, where it became a vital partner in the US-led international coalition against the Islamic State (IS).

In late July 2015, the two-and-a-half-year Turkish-Kurdish peace process came to an abrupt end. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his loyal spy chief Hakan Fidan appear to have set their eyes on the most wanted man in Turkey, 60-year-old clean-shaven guerrilla fighter and author Cemil Bayik. Erdogan remembered well how agents working for Turkish intelligence (MIT) captured the founder of the group, Abdullah Ocalan, in Kenya back in 1999 and brought him back to Turkey blindfolded and shackled.