Turkey, the US and Iraq will set up a joint center in northern Iraq to curb Turkish Kurd rebels taking refuge in the region, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Friday.
“The plan is to set up a joint command of representatives from the three parties in Arbil,” Zebari, on a three-day visit to Turkey, told reporters after talks with Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan.
It would be “a key center to work together to ... ensure border security and prevent cross-border attacks on Turkey,” he said.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has long taken refuge in mountainous bases in northern Iraq, using the region as a springboard for attacks on Turkish targets across the border.
Zebari called the PKK a “poisonous element” in bilateral ties, stressing that both the Baghdad government and the Kurdish administration of northern Iraq were determined to cooperate with Turkey to tackle the problem.
“There will be a combination of political, economic, military and intelligence measures to remove this poisonous element in our relations,” he said.
The center in Arbil, he said, will be part of recently inaugurated trilateral consultations between Turkey, the US and Iraq to outline measures to curb the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community.
It would serve as “a field center to coordinate all activities on the ground,” he said.
A Turkish diplomat, who requested anonymity, said the center would deal mostly with sharing intelligence on the PKK.
Ankara has often accused the Iraqi Kurds, who run an autonomous administration in northern Iraq, of tolerating and even aiding the rebels.
But in a policy shift last year, it said it would seek to resolve the issue through diplomacy and intensified contacts with the Iraqi Kurds, whom it had long snubbed.
Iraqi Kurds are now included in the three-way talks and Zebari on Friday hailed the dialogue as “a new climate of understanding and cooperation.”
Babacan also acknowledged “a more positive atmosphere” between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds, but added that “steps producing concrete results [against the PKK] should become more frequent on the ground.”
He stressed that “ending the activities of this organization is a must for the full normalization of Turkish-Iraqi relations.”
Since December 2007 Turkish warplanes have bombed PKK hideouts in the region under a parliamentary authorization, which expires in October.
The PKK took up arms for self-rule in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 44,000 lives.
Zebari was to wrap up his visit today after a trip to Istanbul.
He and Babacan, along with other ministers, will meet again late next month or early March in Istanbul to discuss cooperation in various realms such as security, trade and transport, a Turkish diplomat said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing