Iraq strengthens ties with Turkey by banning PKK

The Kurdish separatist group known as the PKK, which has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984, has officially been banned by the Iraqi government on July 23rd, reported The New Arab and Arab News.

Turkey has been seeking greater cooperation with Iraq against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for many years; thus, the latest move has been observed as Baghdad answering Ankara’s call to clamp down on the separatist group.

The Department of Administrative Affairs at the Iraqi Parliament initially issued an order on July 14th, which was then published on July 23rd. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani instructed that all official correspondence should use “banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party” instead of PKK. The order is the latest status that Iraqi authorities have given the group.

For the first time in over a decade, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Iraq, meeting with Sudani to discuss how to coordinate joint efforts in getting rid of the “PKK terrorist organisation and its extensions”, according to the Turkish premier.

READ: Turkish military operations into northern Iraq provoke Baghdad

Though the Iraqi government has put the group on its list of banned organisations, it still has not followed Turkey’s lead by designating the PKK as a terrorist group.

Northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region hosts multiple PKK bases. The presence of the Kurdish militant group in close proximity to the Turkish border has led Erdogan to place more troops in northern Iraq, threatening to clear PKK forces out of the area.

The Turkish military has often conducted strikes on PKK and affiliated targets in Syria and Iraq. Baghdad has repeatedly complained about the encroachments on its territory, labelling them as a breach of its sovereignty.

READ: Turkey closes Syria border post after clashes

The governments of the two nations seem to have aligned their interest closer together as they issued a joint statement in March earlier this year declaring that the “PKK organisation represents a security threat to both Turkiye and Iraq”.

On the same day Iraq announced its ban on the PKK, the Turkish Defence Ministry announced that it had killed four suspected PKK militants in northern Iraq through an air offensive. One of the casualties, known as Yusuf Kalkan, is allegedly on a list of militants most wanted by Turkey for directing terrorist activities for an insurgent group which he founded.

The PKK, based in the Qandil mountains of Iraq, is also designated a terrorist group by the European Union, NATO, Japan, Iran and Syria. The group initially sought an independent Kurdish state but decided in the 1990s to seek greater autonomy and increased political and cultural rights for Kurds within Turkey instead.

The New Arab / Arab News and agencies