Turkey offers Iraq help to boost border security
ANKARA: Turkey is in discussions with Iraq to provide technical assistance to Baghdad for securing its borders to prevent movements of outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants around the region, a Turkish defence ministry official said on Thursday.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan visited Baghdad and Erbil this week as Ankara ramped up cross-border operations against PKK militants basedinmountainous,mainlykurdishnortherniraq.
The two countries agreed to a strategic framework agreement overseeing security, trade and energy as well as a defence cooperation deal during the visit.
“We told our counterparts that Turkey is ready to provide assistance to Iraq on border security systems,” the Turkish official told reporters.
A delegation from Iraq earlier visited Turkey to examine the border security systems that Turkey offered to provide, the official also said, adding that the discussions for security cooperation were still under way.
During a joint press conference with Erdogan on Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani said the two countries would cooperate to bolster border security, without mentioning the PKK specifically.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and is designated a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies.
Turkey has conducted a series of cross-border operations against the group in northern Iraq since 2019.
Separately, Iraqi authorities have executed at least 11 people convicted of “terrorism” this week, security and health sources said on Wednesday, with rights group Amnesty International condemning an “alarming lack of transparency.”
Under Iraqi law, terrorism and murder offences are punishable by death, and execution decrees must be signed by the president.
A security source in Iraq’s southern Dhi Qar province told reporters that 11 “terrorists from the Daesh group” were executed by hanging at a prison in the city of Nasiriyah, “under the supervision of a justice ministry team.”
A local medical source confirmed that the health department had received the bodies of 11 executed people.
They were hanged on Monday “under Article 4 of the anti-terrorism law,” the source added, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.