Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani Thursday – the last day of his visit. The two officials held a joint news conference and Fidan reiterated Türkiye’s resolve to fight against the terrorist group PKK, which uses Iraq as a launchpad for attacks on Türkiye.

"PKK terrorism hides itself in the Iraqi territories. We hope we will clean this virus from Iraq together," he said. "We have a lot of work to do to get rid of the terror problem. We largely did it in Türkiye but PKK is now in hiding in Iraq," he said.

Türkiye strives to improve ties with Iraq and Fidan made his first visit to the country since his appointment as foreign minister earlier this summer after serving a long tenure as the head of the country’s intelligence agency.

In his visit to Baghdad, Fidan was blunt in his call to Baghdad for recognition of PKK as a terrorist group. "We expect Iraq, out of friendship and brotherhood, to officially recognize PKK as a terrorist organization," he said at a joint news conference on Tuesday with his Iraqi counterpart.

"We must not allow the PKK terrorist organization, which is a common enemy of Türkiye and Iraq, to poison our bilateral relations," he added.

In its over 40-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is its Syrian branch. The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organization in Türkiye, along with the United States, Britain and the European Union. It has waged a bloody insurgency in Türkiye since 1984 that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including women and children.

Ankara maintains dozens of military bases in northern Iraq where it regularly launches operations against the group, which maintains a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains. In the last few years, intensifying operations in the region have demolished terrorist lairs in Metina, Avashin-Basyan, Zap and Gara. After eradicating the group’s influence in these regions, Türkiye also aims to clear Qandil, Sinjar and Makhmour.

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 the Daesh terrorist group, which controlled much of the area, in 2014 and 2015, when Ankara was an ally in the U.S.-led anti-Daesh campaign.

At the news conference in Irbil, the seat of the KRG, Fidan said he was pleased to be in the city and thanked Barzani for his hospitality. Earlier on Thursday, he held talks with KRG President Nechirvan Barzani. He said they discussed bilateral relations with the president.

Fidan stated that Turkish-Iraqi relations proceeded in a dynamic way and their relations with Baghdad and Irbil have always been important. He said they discussed counterterrorism, energy, economy and commerce in his talks in Irbil, "a city of stability and safety in the troubling years of Iraq." He noted it was important to sustain this stability and security and Türkiye was ready to give all assistance to the Irbil administration.

"Both Baghdad and Irbil are determined to clear PKK terrorism from Iraq and we are pleased with that. We will give any support they need to that extent," he added.

For his part, Masrour Barzani said they hope to continue cooperation with Türkiye against all types of terrorism in the region. He said they would not allow their region to be exploited to destabilize neighboring countries.

Oil issue

On the same day with Fidan, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar was in Irbil where he met Masrour Barzani. Barzani said they discussed the mechanism of exporting KRG oil. Earlier this week, Iraq’s oil minister visited Ankara where he met Bayraktar.

Türkiye halted Iraq’s 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of exports through a crude oil pipeline from the semi-autonomous KRG in Northern Iraq to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on March 25 after an arbitration ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The ICC ordered Türkiye to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion for what it said were unauthorized exports by the KRG between 2014 and 2018.

Türkiye wants to negotiate the size of damages it was ordered to pay in the arbitration ruling, and also seeks clarification on other open arbitration cases.