ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday hailed "dialogue channels" that prevented a US- and Israeli-backed Kurdish offensive into Iran during the recent conflict, warning that such an "insidious game" would have spelled disaster for Kurds in the region.

After the outbreak of US-Israeli strikes in late February, US media outlets began positing the prospect of a ground incursion of Iranian Kurdish dissident groups based in the Kurdistan Region, with US President Donald Trump in early March offering his backing to the initiative before backtracking some days later.

“We’re not looking to the Kurds going in,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on March 8. “We are very friendly with the Kurds … but we don’t want to make the war any more complex than it already is.” 

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was quick to distance itself from being the launching point for a cross-border offensive, with reports later emerging that Kurdish officials and Erdogan contacted Washington to express their discontent with the plot.

In a Wednesday address, the Turkish president spoke at length about Ankara's peace process with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and regional developments, emphasizing the role of multilateral coordination in preventing the aforementioned plan for a guerilla campaign in Rojhelat (western Iran).

"The crisis in Iran has confirmed that this process is vital not only for our country and region, but also for our Kurdish brothers and sisters," Erdogan said at a meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) parliamentary representatives.

"Thanks to the positive atmosphere and dialogue channels provided by the process, greater conflicts that would have harmed our Kurdish brothers and sisters have been prevented," he continued.

"I will conclude by saying this here: In the future, it will become clearer how bloody and insidious a game we, as Turks, Kurds, Arabs, and Persians, have thwarted."

In early March, Erdogan praised the stance of neutrality taken by the Kurdistan Region’s leaders on the US-Israeli war on Iran and their commitment to preventing its territory from being used as a launch pad for attacks.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Erdogan said: "We welcome the statements made by our brothers in the Iraqi Kurdish region and wholeheartedly believe that they will not fall for this plot."