Barzani ignores Turkey’s PKK orders

Iraq’s Kurdish leader Massud Barzani has said he will not follow Turkey’s orders to crack down on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels.

“You do not speak to me, then you ask me to do things against the PKK. How can this be?” Barzani said. “I am a friend of Turkey but I am not taking orders from Turkey or anyone else.”

According to Barzani, Iraqi Kurds were worried that Turkey was using the PKK as a pretext to undermine Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq.