PKK-affiliated armed groups are prepared to attack public buildings in Northern Iraqi Kurdistan, foreign affairs head of the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Hemin Hawrami, said.

Speaking to Rudaw news agency after meeting with consul generals of various countries in Irbil, Hawrami said PKK-affiliated groups have plans in several districts of Sulaymaniyah along with "causing more pressure by bearing arms." He said: "We have informed consuls general and representatives about this issue," adding that the KDP has relevant documents and evidence.

The KRG has been critical of the PKK and its Syrian affiliate Democratic Union Party (PYD), accusing them of impeding the fight against DAESH, and urged the PKK to leave Sinjar.

Two organizations are also making the fight against DAESH more difficult for KRG peshmerga forces, a military official said in an interview published in early November in the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed daily. A peshmerga commander, Qassem Shasho, said that his forces had to postpone plans to liberate Sinjar, a strategically important location in the region, from DAESH because of the PKK presence in the area. Shasho told the daily that they had hoped to launch an attack against DAESH in the beginning of November, but the PKK and PYD prevented the planned attacks.

The KRG also criticized the two organizations in mid-December. "They have occupied six of the remaining buildings, and they will not abandon these posts. We are thankful for those who sacrifice their lives [in the fight] against DAESH, but we do not need the PKK, and the state must remove them from Sinjar. They cannot stay here," the district governor of Sinjar said.

In December, the KDP strongly criticized the umbrella organization that includes the PKK, the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), accusing it of causing trouble for Kurds. "Why do you not solve your problems with Turkey if you do not have enmity against it?" KRG and KDP President Masoud Barzani said in an official statement. "The KDP is used to statements from the KCK that aim to undermine its reputation," the statement read, saying that the KCK's policies are wrong and cause instability in Kurdish regions.