By Manal Abdel Fattah
The official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s office in Cairo, Sherko Habib, said that the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Iraq and Kurdistan aimed to rebuild relations between the two countries based on common interests, indicating the existence of important agreements between the two sides in this regard.
Habib added: In press statements today, Thursday, he said that the focus of the visit on security, energy and water files resulted in putting forward a new vision for a development corridor that includes the UAE, Qatar, Iraq and Turkey, which includes major projects in all fields, pointing out that Iraq’s shared border with Turkey is located in the Kurdistan region and is managed by Guard forces. The borders that belong to the federal government, unlike the trade corridors and crossings that are supervised by the Erbil government.
The official of the Democratic Party’s office in Cairo revealed the details of Erdogan’s meeting with the Kurdish leader, Masoud Barzani, and the region’s leaders, noting that the discussions included files on security, trade, joint investment, and tourism, without shying away from revelations related to the position on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
Habib said: Erdogan stressed the existence of some problems related to the receivables of Turkish companies that have a presence in Kurdistan, and it was pointed out that their delay is due to crises in the region’s share in the state’s general budget received from the federal government. However, there is agreement on the necessity of facilitating the export of the region’s oil abroad through Turkish territory. Resolving border security crises and preventing the recurrence of attacks on the lands of Iraq and Kurdistan.
And Noah Habib; To the point that Erdogan was unable to obtain official recognition from Baghdad or Erbil regarding the Kurdistan Workers’ Party as a terrorist organization, stressing that the party and its members, despite there being an ideological disagreement with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the latter do not consider it a terrorist organization, and also refuses to let Kurdistan become a hotbed of terrorism, indicating To the necessity of resolving the Kurdish issue in Turkey in a peaceful and democratic manner, with full recognition of Kurdish rights in all countries of the region, and not using the lands of Iraq and Kurdistan in mutual battles.
The Kurdish official was considered; Erdogan’s visit to Iraq and Kurdistan was successful because it relied on the idea of building new balanced relations based on common interests, especially with the change in Turkey’s foreign policies towards Iraq, and its refraining from interfering in the affairs of neighboring countries as other countries and regional powers do, which makes it more acceptable to public opinion. Regional and international, and more flexible in dealing with the commonalities between its people and the peoples of the region.
Habib welcomed; Any Iraqi-Turkish agreement regarding a larger water share determined by international treaties on rivers, stressing that the crisis of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers may be on its way to a solution.
Habib concluded: He stressed that Turkey’s rapprochement with Iraq, Kurdistan, and Egypt recently, emphasizes the centrality and influence of the roles of the three countries in the region, with the power they can form resulting from joint cooperation, even bilaterally, especially at the economic level, pointing to the Egyptian presence in the Iraqi scene and the mutual cooperation between them. The two countries at all levels.
