Two armed men on Sunday attacked the Turkish interior ministry in Ankara, injuring two police officers. The PKK claimed responsibility for the suicide attack. Since then, the Turkish army has intensified airstrikes against the alleged PKK positions in the Kurdistan Region and the Kurdish forces in Rojava.
Iraqi Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbassi headed a security delegation to Ankara on Thursday to discuss border security with his Turkish counterpart Yasar Guler.
“We do not allow any violation of Iraqi sovereignty, and there also needs to be a good relationship connecting us to neighboring countries in several fields, including security. That is why we believe it is possible for the [Iraq-Turkey security] committees to be activated in the coming days and achieve good results as they were achieved with neighboring Iran,” Yehia Rasool, spokesperson for the Iraqi Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, told Rudaw.
An Iraqi committee on September 19 announced that Baghdad had complied with the terms of the joint security pact with Iran and disarmed the Kurdish exiled groups on the Iraq-Iran border, meeting the deadline Tehran had set for Baghdad to complete the disarmament process six months prior.
Rasool added that the committees will be in charge of both protecting Iraq’s sovereignty and preventing armed groups from targeting Turkey, adding that Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani has requested they be activated as soon as possible.
Sudani chaired a meeting of the national security council on Thursday and directed Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein to communicate with his Turkish counterpart on activating the bilateral security committees, “as part of the efforts to enhance security cooperation with neighboring countries,” according to a statement from the Iraqi premier’s office.
The Turkish defense ministry stated that about 60 alleged PKK positions in the Kurdistan Region have been targeted since Sunday, adding that numerous PKK fighters have been “neutralized.”
Turkey uses the term “neutralized” to denote adversaries captured, wounded, or killed.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday that any facility linked to the PKK in Iraq and Syria would constitute “legitimate targets,” for his country.
PKK is an armed group struggling for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey but is proscribed as a terrorist organization by Ankara. Turkey also considers the YPG as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK.
