Senior Turkish and Iraqi officials will hold high-level talks in Ankara on Thursday to develop cooperation on security issues, a Turkish diplomatic source told Reuters on Wednesday.
The neighbors have in recent years been at loggerheads over Ankara’s cross-border military operations against outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants based in northern Iraq’s mountainous region.
Iraq has said the operations are a violation of its sovereignty, but Ankara says they are needed to protect itself.
Ties have improved since last year, when the two sides agreed to hold high-level talks on security matters, and after a visit in April by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Baghdad, where he said relations had entered a new phase.
Ankara and Baghdad have so far held three rounds of meetings as part of the dialogue mechanism, with Iraq deciding to label the PKK a “banned organization in Iraq” during the latest talks held in March — a move welcomed by Turkey.
The Turkish source said Thursday’s encounter would mark the first meeting of a “Joint Planning Group” that was decided during Erdoğan’s trip and is headed by the respective foreign ministers.
Talks would also take place to put their cooperation within an institutional and sustainable framework, the source added, saying the delegations would discuss the implementation of 27 agreements signed during Erdoğan’s visit and evaluate further joint initiatives.
On Monday Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler told Reuters that the recent steps taken by Turkey and Iraq in terms of counterterrorism marked a “turning point,” adding that the technical work on establishing a joint operations center for the region was ongoing.
Güler also said Turkey’s cross-border operations in northern Iraq would continue until “the name of terror is wiped out from this region,” adding that Ankara expected Baghdad to label the PKK a terrorist organization as soon as possible.
