Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Tuesday denounced a separatist Kurdish group that operates in Iraq as an enemy of both countries and urged the Iraqi government to ban it as a terrorist organisation, as Ankara has done.
Mr Fidan called on Iraq to designate the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, as a terrorist organisation during his first visit to Baghdad since taking office.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to visit the country shortly, after months of escalating hostility between Turkey and Turkish-backed groups on one side, and Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria on the other.
After meeting Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, Mr Fidan urged Iraqi officials to “not allow our mutual enemy, the PKK terrorist organisation, to poison our bilateral relations".
Baghdad has often complained that Turkish air strikes in northern Iraq are a breach of its sovereignty.
But Mr Fidan described the PKK's activities there as a “challenge against Iraq’s sovereignty", accusing the group of “occupying” areas in Iraq and seeking to link Iraq to neighbouring Syria with a “terror corridor".
The PKK question is expected to loom large during a visit by Mr Erdogan, along with the resumption of oil exports from northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region through the Ceyhan port in Turkey.
Officials in Baghdad and Erbil, the seat of the Kurdish regional government, have long been at odds over sharing of oil revenues.
In 2014, the Kurdish region decided to unilaterally export oil through an independent pipeline to Ceyhan.
Drought in Iraq reveals Yazidi shrine, cemetery and school - in pictures
Turkey halted oil shipments from the Kurdish region through Ceyhan in March, after a ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, which sided with Baghdad, holding that all oil exports should go through Iraq’s state-owned oil marketing company, Somo.
The ruling required Ankara to compensate Baghdad for unauthorised oil exports from the Kurdish regional government from 2014 to 2018.
Iraqi Foreign Affairs spokesman Ahmed Al Sahaf said a high-ranking Iraqi delegation, led by Oil Minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani, is in Turkey.
Mr Hussein said after his meeting with Mr Fidan that they had discussed the oil issue and were close to finalising a solution.
He said the discussions with the Turkish minister had also focused on water issues.
The countries have been at odds over management of shared water resources amid intensifying droughts in Iraq.
“Given our shared challenges with climate change and Iraq’s historical reliance on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers originating in Turkey, it’s crucial for Iraq to receive its fair share of water,” Mr Hussein said.
The two foreign ministers also spoke about recent public Quran-burnings in Europe, which sparked mass protests in Iraq, some of them violent.
Mr Fidan said that if the two Muslim-majority countries “remain united, those who attack our sacred values will think twice before taking such action".
Mr Hussein said about 700,000 Iraqis live in Turkey, and 850 Turkish companies operate in Iraq.
Mr Fidan said that bilateral trade has reached $25 billion.
He is next scheduled to visit Erbil and meet the Kurdish region's Prime Minister, Masrour Barzani.
The specs
Engine 60kwh FWD
Battery Rimac 120kwh Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (LiNiMnCoO2) chemistry
Power 204hp Torque 360Nm
Price, base / as tested Dh174,500
The Gentlemen
Director: Guy Ritchie
Stars: Colin Farrell, Hugh Grant
Three out of five stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
The specs: 2018 Mercedes-AMG C63 S Cabriolet
Price, base: Dh429,090
Engine 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission Seven-speed automatic
Power 510hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque 700Nm @ 1,750rpm
Fuel economy, combined 9.2L / 100km
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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BMW%20M4%20Competition
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E3.0%20twin-turbo%20inline%20six-cylinder%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20eight-speed%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E503hp%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20600Nm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20from%20Dh617%2C600%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Now%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20myZoi%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202021%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Syed%20Ali%2C%20Christian%20Buchholz%2C%20Shanawaz%20Rouf%2C%20Arsalan%20Siddiqui%2C%20Nabid%20Hassan%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2037%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Initial%20undisclosed%20funding%20from%20SC%20Ventures%3B%20second%20round%20of%20funding%20totalling%20%2414%20million%20from%20a%20consortium%20of%20SBI%2C%20a%20Japanese%20VC%20firm%2C%20and%20SC%20Venture%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Tips%20for%20holiday%20homeowners
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
