A Turkish diplomatic source said on Wednesday that senior officials from Iraq and Turkey will meet in Ankara tomorrow to talk about the development of security cooperation between the two countries.
For years now, Turkey has had a strained relationship with Iraq over its military actions against the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), based in northern Iraqi mountains and Iraq has viewed this as an infringement on its sovereignty. However, Turkey has argued that it was only seeking self-defense.
Relations have improved since last year when there were high-level discussions on security topics between them, and after President Tayyip Erdogan visited Baghdad in April, where he noted that new stage had been reached in bilateral relations.
Ankara and Baghdad have so far held three rounds of meetings under this dialogue mechanism, with Iraq deciding to designate PKK as a “prohibited organization within its territory” during their last talks in March – action welcomed by Turkey.
The first visit of a “Joint Planning Group”, a body that was established during Erdogan’s trip and headed by their foreign ministers would be happening on Thursday; continued the Turkish source.
The purpose of these conferences would also be to put into place structures for long term partnership between them; added the source who also mentioned that there would be discussion focusing on 27 agreements signed during the visit by Erdogan while they look at other possible areas of cooperation.
On Monday, Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler told Reuters that recent steps taken by Turkey and Iraq regarding counter-terrorism constituted an important turning point. The technical work is still ongoing towards establishing a joint operations centre for this area according to him.
Guler added that Turkey must continue its cross-border operations in Northern Iraq until “there is no terror left here,” expecting Baghdad to announce PKK as terrorist organization as soon as possible too.
Turkey considers PKK which began insurgency against it since 1984 as terrorist group same as United States but European Union. The conflict has claimed over forty thousand lives.
