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Masrour Barzani, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister has spoken at Chatham House on Wednesday during his visit to London and responded to questions from journalists following his speech that had no reference at all to the Turkish invasion.
Responding to a question on how KDP’s relations with Turkey was at a time when Turkey was carrying out military attacks against Makhmour refugee camp and bases in their territory that seemed to be aimed at dividing the Kurds in KRG from their brothers in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). His response included some interesting remarks.
He said that Turkey is another neighbour that has its own interests and that they had “some common interests and good economic relations” with Turkey.
Barzani stated that ‘the attacks were against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) bases’ and that the PKK was residing in their areas, especially on the border areas ‘without really respecting our government.’
Barzani continued:
“They [Turkey] are coming and attacking PKK inside our territory which is of course causing some troubles for us.
There are many villages, 800 villages that we haven’t been able to reconstruct because of the ongoing conflict between the PKK and Turkey.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the other hand has spoken at the Justice and Development Party (AKP) parliamentary group meeting on Wednesday where he also talked about Turkey’s new operation. Erdoğan said that they were conducting the operation “in close cooperation with the central Iraqi government and North Iraq Regional Government.”
