1 Mar 2021
Turkey summoned Iranian Ambassador Mohammed Farazmand in Ankara on Sunday to complain about Iran’s criticism of Turkish military operations in Iraq.
The complaint concerned demands by another Iranian ambassador, Iraj Masjedi in Baghdad, for Turkey to suspend operations and remove all of its forces from Iraqi territory.
Masjedi gave an interview to Kurdish news service Rudaw on Saturday in which he said Turkey should discontinue its operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist organization that operates in the Iraqi border region:
“We reject military intervention in Iraq and Turkish forces should not pose a threat or violate Iraqi soil,” Masjedi told Rudaw’s Mushtaq Ramazan on Tuesday in an exclusive interview to be aired on Saturday night. “The security of the Iraqi area should be maintained by Iraqi forces and [Kurdistan] Region forces in their area.”