Iraqi armed forces will prevent Kurdish militants based in northern Iraq from staging cross-border attacks against Turkey, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi said on Tuesday.
Abadi’s pledge, made during a phone call with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, came a day after Ankara threatened to intervene directly if the Iraqi operation against the militants based in the Sinjar region failed.
Abadi said that he has ordered the military to take full control of the country’s borders.
“Iraqi security forces have been instructed not to allow the presence of foreign fighters in the border region,” Abadi’s office quoted him as telling Yildirim in their conversation.
The chief of Iraq’s military General Staff, Lieutenant General Othman Al Ghanmi, echoed that message during an inspection tour on Tuesday of troops deployed in Sinjar, the state-run news website Iraqi Media Network reported.
“The Iraqi army is in full control of Sinjar and the border strip with Turkey,” it quoted him as saying.
Erdogan said Turkey would do “what is necessary” if the Iraqi operation failed, raising the prospect of a possible direct Turkish military operation.
Turkish forces are currently waging a full-scale military operation in the Afrin region of northern Syria against the US-allied YPG Kurdish militia that Ankara says has close ties to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).