Sinjar Alliance

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi paid a one-day official visit to Ankara on Dec.17 to discuss with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan economy and security matters, including combatting the PKK and ISIL, the re-construction of Iraq, trade and energy.

A Peshmerga commander based in Sinjar in northern Iraq has said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is maintaining its presence in Iraq's Sinjar region despite Turkey's calls for its evacuation, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Iraqi troops have been deployed in parts of the country’s Sinjar district, from which militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) recently retreated.

As Massoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, continues to resist mounting international calls to scrap a referendum on Kurdish independence planned for September, a rival Kurdish faction has added its voice, declaring what it calls “democratic autonomy” in the predominantly Yazidi region of Sinjar.

On our return from a NATO meeting, I spoke to Defense Minister Fikri Işık about the new U.S. administration's stance. He said, "They are more open to dialogue compared to the Obama administration. They are listening carefully to our justifications." 

Turkey wants to see concrete steps from the central Iraqi government against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) presence in the Sinjar district, west of Mosul, the Turkish ambassador to Baghdad has said.      

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has intensified its terror attacks in Turkey, and the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (PYD) are exactly the same, according to Masoud Barzani, the head of autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq. 

Kurdish forces launched an offensive on Nov. 12 to retake the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) militants who overran it more than a year ago, killing and enslaving thousands of its Yazidi residents and triggering U.S.-led air strikes.