Defense Minister Yaşar Güler and Chief of General Staff Gen. Metin Gürak on Wednesday met with officials in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), a semi-autonomous entity controlling Iraq’s north.
On Tuesday evening, "Güler traveled from Baghdad to Irbil and held a meeting with Nechirvan Barzani, the head of the Kurdish Regional Government," the Defense Ministry said on X.
Barzani and Güler discussed regional developments, with a particular focus on counterterrorism efforts.
The ministry said that after meeting with President Barzani, Güler met with Masoud Barzani, the KRG's prime minister.
The ministry said that regional defense and security issues were discussed during the meeting.
The meetings follow Güler and Gürak’s previously unannounced visit to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad earlier on Tuesday at a time of escalating Turkish counterterrorism operations in Iraq.
About two months prior, Güler and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan hosted their Iraqi counterparts in the Turkish capital of Ankara for a security summit, which included representatives of the KRG.
Türkiye eliminated a large number of terrorists linked to the PKK following the terrorist group’s attacks on Turkish troops based in Iraq’s north. The region is home to senior cadres of the PKK hiding out in mountainous territories a few hundred kilometers from the Turkish border.
Similarly, Ibrahim Kalın, the head of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), which hunts down PKK members in Iraq’s north, often through drone strikes, met the Iraqi president and prime minister, as well as representatives of Shiite, Sunni and Turkmen groups in a visit to the region earlier this month. His discussions involved economic and security cooperation, according to the sources.
After the PKK killed 21 Turkish soldiers in the Metina region, Ankara intensified airstrikes on PKK targets and hideouts across its border, particularly in Sulaymaniyah.
The PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States, Britain and the European Union – is responsible for over 40,000 civilian and security personnel deaths in Türkiye during an almost four-decadelong campaign of terror.
Since Turkish operations have driven its domestic presence to near extinction, the PKK has moved a large chunk of its operations to northern Iraq.
Ankara maintains dozens of military bases there, and it regularly launches operations against the PKK, which operates a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil province. However, the area is under de jure control of the KRG.
Türkiye recently accused the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party of links to the terrorist group in the city, as Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned last week the country would "not hesitate to take further measures if the PUK refuses to change its supportive stance of the PKK despite Ankara's steps toward Sulaymaniyah."
In the last few years, Ankara's intensifying operations in northern Iraq have demolished terrorist lairs in the Metina, Avashin-Basyan, Zap and Gara districts. Still, Baghdad has yet to recognize the PKK as a terrorist group officially, and Turkish strikes remain a prickling issue between the neighbors.
Turkish officials have repeatedly urged Iraq, as well as the KRG, to recognize the PKK as a terrorist group, stressing that the group, which occupies Sinjar, Makhmour, Qandil and Sulaymaniyah, threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq.
Ankara has also expressed readiness to collaborate with Baghdad against both the PKK and Daesh.
Türkiye's military involvement in northern Iraq dates back over two decades, separately from its operations against the PKK, and also included the war against Daesh, which controlled much of the area, in 2014 and 2015, when Ankara was an ally in the U.S.-led anti-Daesh campaign.
The terrorist group has been more active in Syria after a civil war broke out more than a decade ago.
Both MIT and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) regularly conduct cross-border operations in these regions, particularly in northern Iraq, where the PKK terrorists have hideouts and bases from which they carry out attacks against Türkiye.