Iraqi government spokesman Ali al- Dabbagh said on Monday that Baghdad qualifies the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization and bans its activities, reported Turkey's semi-official Anatolia news agency.
"We can understand the agonies Turkish people have felt because of the terrorist organization PKK," al-Dabbagh said in an interview with Anatolia.
Al-Dabbagh was quoted as saying that the Iraqi government is ready to negotiate steps to be taken to end threat and violence of the PKK against Turkey, do everything they can to eradicate the problem and cooperate with Turkey.
"We will not allow such an armed group to function in Iraq," he said, adding the two countries "need some time to totally overcome this 15-year issue".
The Iraqi official revealed that the two countries are working on a draft memorandum of understanding on cooperation in fight against terrorism, which may be signed during Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's scheduled visit to Turkey on Aug. 7-8.
According to him, the memorandum envisages measures like not providing shelter to terrorists, and freezing the financial and logistic resources of terrorists.
Meanwhile, al-Dabbagh held that the PKK is "a complicated issue " and Turkey's option to stage a cross-border operation has been on the table for years.
A unilateral operation of Turkey will not be good for bilateral relations, he said, calling on Turkey "not to take a unilateral step that can threaten Iraq's sovereignty".
Ankara has been asking Washington and Baghdad to take concrete steps to crack down on the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
The PKK has stepped up its attacks on government troops in southeastern Turkey in recent months, which had provoked Ankara to voice request to conduct a cross-border operation against the PKK strongholds in northern Iraq.
The PKK launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.
Source: Xinhua
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