Türkiye’s Ministry of National Defense sources revealed more details of a security pact signed between Ankara and Baghdad last week. Sources said on Thursday that a Joint Security Coordination Center will be established in the Iraqi capital and co-chaired by generals appointed by two countries. A security and training center will also be established at Bashiqa military base in Iraq’s north, sources said.
Top diplomats from the two countries met in the capital of Ankara earlier this month, and Ankara and Baghdad held the fourth round of their High-Level Security Mechanism.
The two countries share a lengthy border, which has been a crossing point into Türkiye for the PKK terrorist group. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Iraq on April 22 marked a turning point in Ankara-Baghdad relations, particularly in the fight against the terrorist group PKK holed up in Iraq.
The neighbors have, in recent years, been at loggerheads over Ankara’s cross-border military operations against the PKK based in northern Iraq’s mountainous region, which is controlled by the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Iraq has said the operations are a violation of its sovereignty, but Ankara says they are needed to protect itself.
The Turkish sources said the text of the security pact shared by some media outlets was false and the original pact covered cooperation in many fields, from training of troops and law enforcement, counterterrorism, joint border security, fight against irregular migration and infiltration through borders of two countries, fight against smuggling and organized crime, intelligence exchange and defense. Also on Thursday, the Center for Combating Disinformation, a subsidiary of the Turkish Presidency’s Communications Directorate, denied claims that the security pact would end Turkish troops’ presence in Iraqi territories, saying in a statement that the pact did not have such a clause as claimed.
Sources said the Joint Security Coordination Center would also be staffed by civilian personnel, and the two countries would hold further talks on the number of staff and their work.
As for the training and cooperation center in Bashiqa, sources said it would provide a platform for Türkiye and Iraq to exchange experiences and information on security. “The memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries primarily aims to eliminate threats posed by terrorist or banned groups to sovereignty and the security of the two countries and regional security,” sources said.
The PKK has led a bloody terrorism campaign against Türkiye since 1984, massacring over 40,000 people. Labeled a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union, the PKK has strongholds in northern Iraq from where it launches attacks into Türkiye.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said at a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Ankara earlier this month that the presence of PKK terrorists in northern Iraq poses “a danger to the Kurdistan region and other Iraqi cities” and poses a threat to Iraqi society.
“The Iraqi government has decided to add the PKK to the list of banned parties,” he added.
Since Turkish operations have driven its domestic presence to near extinction, the PKK has moved a large chunk of its operations to northern Iraq.
Ankara maintains dozens of military bases there, and it regularly launches operations against the PKK, which uses a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil.
Since the start of the year, Ankara has hinted at a final summer offensive against the PKK in both northern Iraq and Syria, where the PKK operates with its local offshoot, the YPG.
Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said recently that the ongoing Operation Claw-Lock, launched in April 2022, would be completed before the winter to sever the ties between Syria and Qandil.
Türkiye aims to wipe out the PKK from its borders and create an approximately 40-kilometer-deep (24.85 miles-deep) security corridor along the Iraqi and Syrian borders.
Both the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) have since ramped up strikes on the “terror corridor” in the region, indicating a wider offensive may already be underway.
Brigadier Admiral Zeki Aktürk, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, told reporters at a news briefing in the capital of Ankara on Thursday that security forces eliminated 38 terrorists within the past week in operations against the PKK. Aktürk added that the number of terrorists eliminated between Jan. 1 and the past week reached 1,763 with the latest operations in Iraq and Syria.
