That which can’t go on... won’t.
[Rudaw] The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is a "tragic" legacy from Iraqi former dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s foreign ministry spokesperson told Rudaw late Friday, adding that the Kurdish group is an "imported" issue from 
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
On Wednesday, a shelling in Zakho, Duhok province killed nine Arab tourists and injured 22 others from Iraq’s central and southern provinces. Baghdad and Erbil have blamed the
Turkey claims that the PKK is a "terrorist" organization and poses a threat to its national security from inside Iraq. Iraqi foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed al-Sahaf told Rudaw’s Nwenar Fatih late Friday that the Kurdish group has become a headache for Iraqi governments since the collapse of the Baath regime in 2003.
"The PKK is one of the heavy and tragic legacies left by the toppled Baath regime, and there are historical problems that have accumulated on the democratic system after 2003," said Sahaf, adding that the PKK is an "imported" issue from Turkey.
The PKK was founded in 1978 with the stated goal of struggling for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. In the early eighties, the party made an agreement with the Iraq-based Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to move some of its troops to what is now the Kurdistan Region. However,
those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things...
the KDP, which still rules the Region, now has thorny relations with the PKK and strong ties with Ankara. Both Kurdish parties fought for years in the nineties over land control in the Region.
Turkey has carried out dozens of anti-PKK military operations inside the Kurdistan Region since the nineties. There have been reported agreements between Ankara and Baghdad which allowed the
The Iraqi spokesperson told Rudaw that there has never been any agreement between both countries over the PKK.
"There was never an agreement, but the minutes of a bilateral meeting, in which it was decided that if Turkey wanted to take any military action, it had to ask the Iraqi government every time," Sahaf said, adding that Ankara has never abided by this.
He also clarified that none of the Iraqi governments, which were formed after 2003, have recognized such a decision by Hussein’s regime and
The PKK-affiliated forces, which have controlled parts of the Yazidi heartland of Shingal for years following the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(ISIS) attacks in 2014, have enjoyed good relations with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) but clashed with the Iraqi army several times over land control.
Baghdad and Erbil have an agreement in 2020 to expel the PKK-affiliated forces in Shingal and "normalize" the situation there but these forces have refused to leave the town.
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) too has blamed the PKK for creating issues for the Region such killing members of Peshmerga forces and giving Turkey an excuse to attack the bordering areas. Over a hundred civilians have been killed in recent years due to