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Turkish FM calls for regional cooperation to fight PKK

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Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called for combined regional efforts to combat the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq and neighboring Syria during a visit to Baghdad on Sunday, Agence France-Presse reported.

The PKK, which has fought a decades-long war against the Turkish state, holds positions in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, which also hosts Turkish military bases.

The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, and Ankara accuses Kurdish forces in Syria of links to the outlawed group.

“I want to emphasize this fact in the strongest way: The PKK is targeting Turkey, Iraq and Syria,” Fidan said at a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart, Fuad Hussein.

“We must combine all our resources and destroy both Daesh and the PKK,” he added, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Fidan’s visit comes after two Iraqi border guards were killed Friday near the Turkish border in a shooting that Baghdad blamed on the PKK. After the attack, Ankara vowed to work with Iraq to secure their common frontier.

Turkey regularly launches strikes against the PKK in Iraq and Kurdish fighters in Syria.

Baghdad has recently sharpened its tone against the PKK, and last year it quietly listed the group as a “banned organization” — though Ankara demands that the Iraqi government do more in the fight against the militant group.

“Our ultimate expectation from Iraq is that it recognizes the PKK, which it has declared a banned organization, as a terrorist organization as well,” Fidan said.

In August Baghdad and Ankara signed a military cooperation deal to establish joint command and training centers with the aim of fighting the PKK.

The foreign ministers also discussed the fight against ISIL on the Iraqi-Syrian border, Hussein said during the news conference, as well as the situation in Syria, where longtime leader Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December.

“There are clear understandings between … Turkey and Iraq on how to address” the situation there, he said, adding that Baghdad was in contact with the new Syrian authorities and was “trying to coordinate on many issues.”

Earlier this month, Fidan threatened to launch a military operation against Kurdish forces in Syria, where Turkey has carried out successive ground operations to push the fighters away from its border.

The Kurdish forces there are seen by the West as essential in the fight against ISIL.

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