Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu arrived in Erbil

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu arrived in the Kurdistan Region on Sunday evening and he is expected to meet with the top Kurdish officials on Monday.

The Turkish top diplomat was received by Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani at the Erbil International Airport.

Cavusoglu landed in Baghdad earlier the day where, apart from meeting PM Adil Abdul-Mahdi, he also met with his Iraqi counterpart Mohammed al-Hakim to discuss a number of bilateral relations between Baghdad and Ankara, including counter-terrorism, trade and water issues. Cavusoglu Baghdad wants to build “perfect and balanced cooperative ties with all neighboring countries [which] focus on the commonalities”. 

He further shed light on subject of the presence of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the border areas between the two neighboring countries as Turkey has several times called on Iraq to take legal actions against the Kurdish armed group which is designated by Ankara as a "terrorist organization."