ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Turkish border may soon be closed to the Kurdistan Region on the condition that Baghdad continues to provide the needs of the Region.
“Our talks [with Iraq] on what we can do are continuing. If they [the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government] hand over the border gate to the central government, we’ll set the condition [that the central government] must meet all the needs of the people under the northern Iraqi administration,” Erdogan told reporters late Tuesday night during a return trip from Poland. “We have not yet closed the gates, but this could happen at any time.”
Erdogan said there was a delegation of three of four ministers under the Foreign Ministry led by Mevlut Cavusoglu planning on traveling to Baghdad soon and that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi may soon come to Ankara upon his invitation “to evaluate all issues together.”
Opposed by Turkey, along with other regional neighbors and most of the international community, the Kurdistan Region went ahead with its referendum for independence vote on September 25 which included the Kurdistan Region and the disputed or Kurdistani territories.
In the wake of the independence referendum, Baghdad took a set of punitive measures against the Region, mainly the deployment of troops to the disputed areas, notably Kirkuk, a flight ban to and from the Kurdistan Region, and border closure which came into enforcement by Iran, as a neighboring country on Baghdad's request on last week.
Erdogan has accused Erbil of “trying to seize Kirkuk and other regions like an occupying force." Kirkuk has a large Turkmen population along with Kurds and Arabs.
“Now [different Kurdish groups] are at odds with each other, accusing each other of selling them out,” he said.
Erdogan denied any claims that the Turkish government were working in cooperation with the Iranian-backed mainly Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi which had a large influence on the Iraqi security forces in taking control of Kirkuk, Sinjar, and several other disputed territories since Monday.
“There is news that Hashd al-Shaabi has seized the Sinjar and Makhmour regions. If this is real, then we might have to start new work with our counterparts,” Erdogan said.
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