Turkey’s long pursuit of Kurdish militants on Iraqi territory has finally struck its ties with Baghdad and Erbil like a meteor, forcing the Iraqi Kurdish administration to openly confront Ankara after years of tiptoeing on the Turkish operations at the expense of fanning intra-Kurdish rows for years.

A July 20 artillery strike blamed on Turkey killed nine Iraqi vacationers and wounded more than 20 others in Parakh, a hill village near the Turkish border in Dahuk province in Iraqi Kurdistan. Indignation has swept Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite political actors that Ankara sees as close to itself. In a remarkably harsh reaction, Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr urged Iraq to downgrade relations and cancel all security agreements with Turkey, halt air and land traffic between the two countries.

Turkey has for decades pursued the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Iraqi territory along the border, but its campaign has ballooned with its series of "Claw" operations since 2019. The PKK, which Ankara designates as a terrorist group, took up arms in southeastern Turkey in 1984 and has long used the rugged mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan as a rear base.

Immediately after the attack, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi dispatched Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and other officials to Parakh, while Turkey denied responsibility for the mayhem, blaming it on the PKK. A Foreign Ministry statement signaled Ankara’s willingness for a joint probe into the incident and urged Iraqi leaders “not to make statements under the influence of [PKK] propaganda.”