Northern Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said Thursday that the PKK is becoming a destabilizing factor in northern Iraq's Sinjar region, and reiterated his call for the terrorist group to leave the area.
Local media outlets reported that Barzani asked PKK to retreat from Sinjar, amid reports suggesting that the PKK created new Yazidi units in the region, and accepted to leave Sinjar only after Yazidis take control of the town.
KRG Prime Minister Barzani made similar statements in the past. Last December, he even said that the KRG was considering to use force should the PKK refuse to remove its terrorists from Sinjar.
In 2015, Barzani also said that the presence of the PKK in northern Iraq's Qandil region, where the headquarters of the terrorist group are located, was temporary and that they expected their withdrawal.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and EU. It has waged a terror campaign against Turkey for more than 30 years during which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
Turkey has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate PKK to permanently base in Mount Sinjar, accusing the terror group of establishing a "second Mount Qandil," referring to its current headquarters in northern Iraq near the border with Iran.
