Since the Iraqi Kurds voted for independence Sept. 25, Turkey has been hurling threats of political, economic and military sanctions against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Turkey’s nationalist opposition leader has added an unprecedented warning to the barrage of fury coming out of Ankara: to send thousands of volunteers to defend the Turkmen minority in northern Iraq.

According to Devlet Bahceli, the head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Ankara should consider the referendum a “cause of war.” In a Sept. 27 statement, Bahceli, who has been a de facto ally of the ruling party for some time, slammed the government for failing to enact “concrete” measures against the KRG. “At least 5,000 [nationalist] volunteers are waiting, ready to join the struggle for existence, unity and peace in the Turkmen-populated … cities, notably Kirkuk,” he said, referring to members of the Idealist Hearths, a youth organization affiliated with his party.

On Oct. 3, Bahceli went even further. First, he asserted that his warning of about 5,000 volunteers on standby was neither a “bluff” nor a “claptrap.” Then he threatened the annexation of Mosul and Kirkuk, evoking the 1920 Misak-i Milli (National Pact), a manifesto adopted at the outset of the Turkish liberation war upon the Ottoman defeat in World War I, which included Mosul and Kirkuk within Turkish national borders. “When conditions become ripe, when history can no longer fit into [the current] geography, Misak-i Milli will awaken. Then, no power will be able to stand in the way of the right to say 82 Kirkuk, 83 Mosul after 81 Duzce,” he said, referring to the license plate numbers of Turkey’s 81 provinces, where Duzce stands on the bottom of the list.

Bahceli’s mention of 5,000 volunteers does not seem to be a randomly uttered number. Had he meant his grassroots and youth branches in general, he would have spoken of hundreds of thousands of people. By giving a specific figure, he seems to suggest that the MHP has a contemplated and calculated army of “volunteers.”