ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani arrived in Turkey on Thursday for talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as their two neighboring countries move forward with efforts to strengthen cooperation and repair previously tense ties.
The talks in Ankara are expected to focus on a new peace effort between Turkey and a Kurdish militant group that has a foothold in Iraq, as well as water supplies to Iraq. Erdogan’s office said that Turkish and Iraqi officials will ink a series of cooperation agreements during the visit.
Relations between Turkey and Iraq were often strained over Turkish military incursions into northern Iraq for operations against the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and the establishment of Turkish military bases there. Baghdad frequently condemned the incursions as a violation of its sovereignty.
More recently, however, the two countries have deepened cooperation on security, including addressing the PKK presence in northern Iraq. Erdogan visited Baghdad last year for the first time in more than a decade.
Also last year, Iraq announced that the Iraqi National Security Council had issued a ban on the PKK, although it stopped short of designating it as a terrorist organization.
The visit comes after the PKK’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called on his group to dissolve and disarm as part of a new peace initiative with Turkey. The group declared a unilateral ceasefire in March and is now expected to hold a congress in northern Iraq, during which it would announce its dissolution, Turkish officials have said.
The PKK, which has maintained bases in northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, has fought Turkey for an autonomous Kurdish state. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s. Turkey and its Western allies have designated the PKK a terrorist organization.
In recent years, Iraqi officials have complained that dams built by Turkey are reducing Iraq’s water supply.
The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which provide most of Iraq’s fresh water, originate in Turkey. Experts fear that climate change is likely to exacerbate existing water shortages in Iraq, with potentially devastating consequences.
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