Presence Of PKK In Iraq Illegal: Turkiye-Iraq Joint Statement
At the end of a security meeting between the foreign and defense ministers of Turkiye as well as Iraqi officials, for the first time, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) group was mentioned as an illegal group whose military acts against Turkiye from Iraqi soil violate Iraqi laws.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkiye Hakan Fidan, Minister of National Defense of Turkiye Yasar Guler, and Director of the National Intelligence Organization of Turkiye (MIT) Ibrahim Kalin entered Baghdad on March 14 to participate in a security meeting. In this meeting, the two sides discussed their joint plan to fight against terrorism as well as the way to deal with the PKK issue.
In the final statement of this meeting, the two countries (Turkiye and Iraq) emphasized on preserving the territorial integrity of Iraq, respecting its sovereignty, and political unity. It also stressed the role of the PKK as a security threat to both countries and reminded that the presence of such an organization on Iraqi soil constitutes a violation of Iraq’s constitution.
It is worth mentioning that Iraq and Turkiye had previously declared the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) a common threat, but this is the first time the two countries have jointly defined the PKK as an “illegal organization.”
Based on the outcome of this meeting, it appears that we are witnessing a major policy shift by the central government of Iraq towards illegal groups in the Kurdistan region of the Arab country, and it is likely that in the future, Turkish military operations against these groups will be carried out more intensively in coordination with the Iraqi central government.
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