PKK terrorist organization - Iraqi PM says

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq


Baghdad, Oct 23, (VOI) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Tuesday, during his meeting with the visiting Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, that the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) is a terrorist organization and we decided to close its offices and prevent it from working within the Iraqi territories.

The premier expressed optimism to end the current crisis in cooperation with the Turkish government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan."The premier stressed to Babacan his country's keenness to have the best of relations with neighboring Turkey according to a constitutional national vision based on principle of not interfering in internal affairs and preventing terrorist organizations from using Iraqi territories to launch attacks on other neighboring countries," al-Maliki's office said in a statement received by the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

"The visiting Turkish minister reiterated Turkey's support of the Iraqi government and its respect of Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity, highlighting the desire to cooperate with Iraq to fight terrorism threatening Iraqi and Turkish people, voicing hope over the end of PKK's presence on northern Iraq and solve this crisis through cooperation between the two countries," according to the Iraqi statement.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday for talks with government officials on problems related to the PKK and current tension on Iraq-Turkey border. He held a meeting earlier with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zibari.
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