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IraqForeign Minister Fuad Hussain met on Sunday kurdish Separatist fighters who have retreated to the north of the country after a decades-long insurgency turkey To disarm.
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKKbegan laying down their arms in a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq in July after Turkey withdrew its fighters from Iraq as part of a peace effort with Ankara.
But according to Hussein, armed “PKK elements” remain in northern Iraq, particularly in Sinjar and Makhmur.
Speaking on Sunday during a joint press conference in Baghdad Hussein, accompanied by his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, said: “We support the agreement between Turkey and the PKK and look forward to the implementation of this agreement and the resolution of the PKK issue.”
He said the issue of “PKK elements” in northern Iraq was discussed with Fidan.
Turkey hopes the PKK will end its armed operations in Iraq and withdraw from there, as well as from Iran and parts of Syria, Fidan said.
“We are working closely with Iraq and I thank both Iraq and Kurdistan for their cooperation in this regard,” he said.
Sabri Ok, a member of the Kurdistan Communities Union, a Kurdish umbrella organization, said this week that all PKK forces in Turkey were being withdrawn to areas in northern Iraq “to avoid conflict or provocation.”
Hussain said that following last month’s talks, 26 bilateral MoUs related to energy and security, as well as a key water rehabilitation agreement, were being signed.
An official at Sulaimaniyah International Airport told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that flights between Iraq and Turkey were set to resume on Monday, ending a suspension that had lasted more than two years.
The PKK announced in May that it would end the armed conflict and end four decades of hostilities with Turkey. The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to call a congress and formally disband and disarm.