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The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and the Turkish military both have denied that Turkish troops clashed with Kurdish Peshmerga forces Feb. 21 inside northern Iraq. Just a few minutes prior to the denials, Fouad Hussein, head of the office of the president of Iraq’s KRG, said that Kurdish paramilitary peshmerga troops tried to stop Turkish forces from moving tanks from a base that has long been inside northern Iraq, sparking a gunfight. There was no word on casualties or on the exact location of the reported clash, although presumably the alleged incident took place near the Iraqi border with Turkey.
Stratfor cannot verify that the clashes took place, but the conflicting statements from the KRG suggest that an incident likely took place between Turkish troops and peshmerga acting on their own discretion. The KRG now needs to downplay the event to contain the situation.
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