ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraqi and Turkish interior ministers on Thursday discussed the implementation of details of a security understanding between Baghdad and Ankara on cooperation in military and counterterrorism in the border regions of northern Iraq.
"During the meeting, the implementation of the security memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries was discussed, as well as the work of the committees formed to implement its provisions,” read a statement by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior carried by the Iraqi state media.
Iraq’s interior minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari arrived in Ankara on Wednesday, heading a high-level delegation to discuss bolstering security relations with Turkish officials.
Shammari and his Turkish counterpart Ali Yerlikaya discussed continued “security cooperation in the fields of combating terrorism and exchanging wanted suspects, as well as combating drugs."
"The two sides stressed the importance of strengthening and building bilateral relations between the ministries of both countries and continuing to exchange expertise and build capacities to serve the mutual interests between Iraq and Turkey,” the statement detailed.
Iraq and Turkey have maintained strong security coordination since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Iraq in April, signing dozens of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) across multiple sectors.
The defense ministers of Iraq and Turkey signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in mid-August in Ankara, following the fourth meeting of the Turkey-Iraq High-Level Security Mechanism. The agreement, according to leaders of both sides, aims to strengthen efforts against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK,) a designated terrorist organization by Turkey and Iraq, which has maintained a military presence in the mountainous regions of the Kurdistan Region for the past four decades.
Both countries have repeatedly reiterated their commitment to combating the PKK, which they deem a mutual security threat.
On grounds of training Sunni militia groups during the height of the ISIS war in Iraq, Turkey deployed its troops to Bashik, northeast of Nineveh in 2014. They have stayed there ever since then, despite the territorial defeat of the militant group in 2017.
Turkey has a strong military presence in the Kurdistan Region where it has over 70 military bases.
Local villagers and residents have borne the brunt of the PKK-Turkey conflict.
Over 300 civilians have been killed over the past three decades amid the PKK-Turkey crossfire, according to an August report by the US-based Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a human rights organization and conflict monitor tracking these Turkish operations.
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