DUBAI: Iran and Iraq have reached an agreement that “armed terrorist groups” in Iraq’s Kurdistan region will be disarmed and relocated next month, Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday.
“An agreement has been struck between Iran and Iraq, in which Iraq has committed to disarm armed separatists and terrorist groups present in its territory, close their bases, and relocate them to other locations before the 19th of September,” ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said at a weekly briefing.
The spokesperson did not specify where militants would be relocated. There was no immediate comment from Iraq.
Iran has long accused Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdish region of harboring terrorist groups involved in attacks against the Islamic Republic, with the Revolutionary Guards repeatedly targeting their bases.
Last September, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards fired missiles and drones at militant targets at Iraq’s Kurdish region, killing 13 people, according to local authorities.
Iraq’s foreign ministry had condemned the attacks. Iran’s elite military and security forces had said it would continue targeting what it called terrorists in the region. (Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Iran says Iraq has agreed to disarm and relocate Kurdistan militants
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Iran says Iraq has agreed to disarm and relocate Kurdistan militants
- The spokesperson did not specify where militants would be relocated
- ran has long accused Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdish region of harboring terrorist groups
High-level Turkish team to visit Damascus on Monday for talks on SDF integration
- The visit by Turkiye’s foreign and defense ministers and its intelligence chief comes amid efforts by Syrian, Kurdish and US officials to show some progress with the deal
ANKARA: A high-level Turkish delegation will visit Damascus on Monday to discuss bilateral ties and the implementation of a deal for integrating the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into Syria’s state apparatus, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said.
The visit by Turkiye’s foreign and defense ministers and its intelligence chief comes amid efforts by Syrian, Kurdish and US officials to show some progress with the deal. But Ankara accuses the SDF of stalling ahead of a year-end deadline.
Turkiye views the US-backed SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, as a terrorist organization and has warned of military action if the group does not honor the agreement.
Last week Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara hoped to avoid resorting to military action against the SDF but that its patience was running out.
The Foreign Ministry source said Fidan, Defense Minister Yasar Guler and the head of Turkiye’s MIT intelligence agency, Ibrahim Kalin, would attend the talks in Damascus, a year after the fall of former President Bashar Assad.
TURKEY SAYS ITS NATIONAL SECURITY IS AT STAKE
The source said the integration deal “closely concerned Turkiye’s national security priorities” and the delegation would discuss its implementation. Turkiye has said integration must ensure that the SDF’s chain of command is broken.
Sources have previously told Reuters that Damascus sent a proposal to the SDF expressing openness to reorganizing the group’s roughly 50,000 fighters into three main divisions and smaller brigades as long as it cedes some chains of command and opens its territory to other Syrian army units.
Turkiye sees the SDF as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and says it too must disarm and dissolve itself, in line with a disarmament process now underway between the Turkish state and the PKK.
Ankara has conducted cross-border military operations against the SDF in the past. It accuses the group of wanting to circumvent the integration deal and says this poses a threat to both Turkiye and the unity of Syria.
