Kirkuk

Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT) has neutralized an alleged high-ranking PKK terrorist in the northern Iraq city of Sulaymaniyah, Demirören News Agency has reported.

"Mehmet Doğan, codenamed 'Dılhaz Gabar,' was neutralized in an operation conducted by MİT in the Cemcemal neighborhood of Sulaymaniyah," the agency reported on June 2.

One person died in Iraq and more than 5,000 were treated in hospitals on May 5 for respiratory ailments due to a sandstorm, the seventh in a month, the Health Ministry said.

Turkey and Iraq agreed to continue fighting terrorists trying to disrupt peace and stability in their common region, the Turkish president announced on Dec. 17. 

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's remarks came at a joint news conference following a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi who is in Turkey to discuss regional, bilateral and economic ties.

A rocket attack in northern Iraq killed an American contractor and wounded several military personnel on Dec. 28, the first U.S. casualties from a string of recent strikes, the international coalition against the ISIL group said.    

The Iraqi prime minister has said Baghdad would increase oil export from fields in the northern province of Kirkuk to a Turkey's southern port.

Turkey has condemned the bomb attacks on ethnic Turkmens in the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk.

One policeman was killed and 22 people were injured in a suicide bombing targeting ballot boxes in Iraq's northern Kirkuk province on July 1, according to a local police officer.

A Daesh (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a ballot box warehouse south of the Kirkuk province, police captain Hamed al-Obeidi told Anadolu Agency.

US President Donald Trump rarely gives official press conferences, but last night he decided to talk to journalists in the White House Rose Garden, the Associated Press reported.

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani went ahead with the independence referendum despite all the oppositions. 

Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım explained how a complicated and tensed period was waiting for Turkey.
He also emphasized a couple of times that they would have "closer dialogue with Baghdad." 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denounced the independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan, and will not rule out a potential military action to stop efforts to usurp his country's territory, Al-Jazeera reported.

The warning came as people in the Iraqi autonomous region voted on Monday in an independence referendum, amid rising tensions and international opposition.