Baghdad: Iraq’s armed forces have instructions to prevent “foreign fighters” from launching cross-border attacks on Turkey, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi told his Turkish counterpart, Binali Yildirim.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Turkey’s intelligence chief would meet an Iraqi official to discuss an Iraqi military operation in Sinjar, a region of Iraq bordering on Turkey, where Ankara says Kurdish militants have established a base.
Erdogan also said Turkey’s would do “what is necessary” if the Iraqi operation in Sinjar failed.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades. Erdogan said last week they were creating a new base in Sinjar, and that Turkish forces would attack it if necessary.
Sources in northern Iraq said on Friday the PKK would withdraw from Sinjar, where it gained a foothold in 2014 after coming to the aid of the Yazidi minority community, who were under attack by Daesh.
The PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, has for decades been based in Iraq’s Qandil mountain range, near the border with Iran.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s military killed 11 Kurdish militants in its southern Hatay province bordering Syria overnight, the governor’s office said on Tuesday, and the army said two of its soldiers were killed in a blast in Syria’s Afrin region.
Backed by air support, Turkish security forces opened fire and killed the militants after spotting them in Hatay’s Arsuz district, near the Mediterranean Sea, the governor’s office said in a statement.
It said the military seized the bodies of six of militants, along with M-16 rifles, a rocket launcher and ammunition. The group was believed to be behind several attacks in the province last year, it said.
Turkey has fought an insurgency with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants since 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which is largely focused in Turkey’s southeast, hundreds of kilometres east of Hatay.
