BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein on Sunday called on Kurdish separatists who have withdrawn to the country’s north after waging a decades-long insurgency in Turkey to disarm.
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, began laying down its arms in July in a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq after withdrawing its fighters from Turkey to Iraq as part of a peace effort with Ankara.
But armed “PKK elements” remain in northern Iraq, notably in Sinjar and Makhmur, according to Hussein.
Speaking during a joint news conference in Baghdad with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, Hussein 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 matter of the “PKK elements” in northern Iraq was discussed with Fidan.
Turkey hopes that the PKK will end its armed operations in Iraq and withdraw from there, as well as in parts of Iran and Syria, Fidan said.
“We are working closely with Iraq, and I thank both Iraq and the Kurdistan region for their cooperation in this regard,” he said.