MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th January, 2023) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani on Tuesday to take a tough line on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish militant group labeled as terrorist by Ankara.
"President Erdogan noted that it was a necessity of Iraq's own nationals security interests as well to end the PKK terrorist organization's presence in the Iraqi soil," the Turkish presidency said in a statement.
The leaders spoke over the phone to discuss bilateral and regional issues, the presidency added. Erdogan insisted that cooperation at both levels would "further strengthen in every area in the period ahead."
Erdogan also assured Al-Sudani that his government attached as much importance to Iraq's territorial integrity as that of Turkey.
The Turkish government has been fighting the PKK, which wants to establish a Kurdish autonomy in Turkey, since the early 1980s. The PKK and Ankara signed a ceasefire agreement in 2013, but it collapsed just two years later over several terrorist attacks which Turkey blamed on the Kurds. Since 2016, the Turkish armed forces have been conducting air and ground operations against PKK militants in northern Iraq and Syria. The presence of the Turkish military in the Zlikan camp northeast of the Iraqi city of Mosul is a matter of dispute between Baghdad and Ankara.
