Turkish and Iraqi officials to meet amid persistent PKK threat

Top officials from Türkiye and Iraq will meet on Thursday in Ankara for a high-level security meeting that aims to address common threats faced by the two neighbouring countries.

The 4th meeting of the Türkiye-Iraq High-Level Security Mechanism seeks to reinforce the mutual understanding of security matters by taking concrete steps and enhancing the legal framework to support collaborative efforts.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s April 22 visit to Iraq marked a turning point in Ankara-Baghdad relations with the signing of the Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA).

The SFA established the Joint Planning Group (JPG), co-chaired by their respective foreign ministers, and various Joint Permanent Committees (JPCs) to institutionalise and sustain cooperation.

Stronger ties

During then-Iraqi prime minister Adil Abdulmehdi's visit to Türkiye in May 2019, Erdogan and Abdulmehdi reached an understanding on strengthening the formal basis of military and security cooperation.

Negotiations on this matter were to be conducted by the foreign ministers, defence ministers, and intelligence chiefs of both countries, with the first meeting in this format held in 2019.

However, the mechanism was suspended due to Iraq's internal turmoil and the Covid-19 pandemic, but was revived after Turkish diplomat Hakan Fidan visited Baghdad in August 2023.

The second meeting of the High-Level Security Mechanism, chaired by the foreign ministers of both countries, was held in Ankara on December 19, 2023.

At the meeting's conclusion, a joint statement was issued in which Iraq officially described the PKK terror group as a "common threat" for the first time.

At the third meeting on March 14, 2024, the "common threat" designation for the PKK was reiterated and reinforced as Iraqi officials announced the National Security Council's decision to declare the PKK a "banned organisation" in Iraq. Ankara welcomed this move in the joint statement issued afterwards.