Barzani discusses strategy and regional issues with Erdoğan in Ankara

 

President of Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani met with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey for talks on combatting terrorism and focused on cooperation between the two sides.

Mr Barzani arrived in Ankara for an official two-day visit.

Barzani also met Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu later to discussed regional issues and the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)

The Kurdish president's visit to Turkey came amid the escalating tension between Ankara and Baghdad over the deployment of Turkish troops in Iraqi city of Mosul where Turkey has deployed around 150 troops, along with 25 tanks, to a camp in the Bashiqa region of northern Iraq on Thursday, calling it a routine rotation to train Iraqis to retake Mosul from ISIL, which captured Iraq's second-largest city in 2014.

Mr Barzani said the Kurdistan Regional Government welcomes any attacks on ISIL militants, but Russian attacks are hurting the region by forcing it to close its airports, Kurdish media reported on Tuesday.

"This issue needs to be solved and we ask Russia to not make problems for the KRG's airlines," Barzani said.

He said the KRG is in contact with Baghdad about resolving the problem of suspended flights at the international airports in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah due to Russian missile attacks on ISIL in Syria.

"Turkey has helped us a lot in the fight against ISIL. They have provided military support as well as training Peshmerga. It sided with us when things in our economy were going bad. We want more because it is an important partner to cooperate in the fight against ISIL." President Massoud Barzani said.