Turkey’s foreign minister on Tuesday denounced the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which operates in northern Iraqi territory, calling it an enemy of both Turkey and Iraq.
Hakan Fidan urged Iraq to label the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, a terrorist organization during his first visit to Baghdad since taking office.
The trip came ahead of an anticipated visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after what has been months of escalating hostility between Turkey and Turkish-backed groups on one side, and Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria on the other.
In a statement after meeting with his counterpart, Fidan urged Iraqi officials to “not allow our mutual enemy, the PKK terrorist organization, to poison our bilateral relations.”
While Baghdad has frequently complained that Turkish airstrikes in northern Iraq are a breach of its sovereignty, Fidan described the PKK’s activities there as a “challenge against Iraq’s sovereignty,” accusing the group of “occupying” areas in Iraq and seeking to link Iraq to neighbouring Syria with a “terror corridor.”
The PKK question is expected to loom large during a visit by Erdogan, along with the resumption of oil exports from northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region via the Ceyhan port in Turkey.
Source : New Arab