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AFP
ISTANBUL
PRESIDENT Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that a joint Turkish-Iranian operation against Kurdish militants was"always on the agenda", a week after Tehran's top armed forces commander visited Ankara for rare talks.
Turkey has battled the outlawed Kurdistan Workers'Party (PKK) for decades, while the Iranian security forces have also fought its affiliate, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK). Both groups have rear bases in neighbouring Iraq.
"It is always on the agenda to carry out a joint operation with Iran against those terror organisations which pose a threat,"Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul before a trip to Jordan.
His comments came after Iran's Armed Forces chief of staff General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri visited Turkey last week, with the two sides discussing ways to cooperate against the militants.
During the visit, Iran made a"surprise proposal"to Ankara to launch a joint operation against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq's Kandil and Sinjar regions, the Turkish newspaper Turkiye reported on its front page on Monday.
The newspaper claimed the proposal sparked surprise in Ankara because Turkish officials had long complained that Tehran had left Turkey alone in its fight against the PKK's cadres, financial structuring and political activities.
The PKK is designated as a terror group by Turkey, the European Union and the US.
Erdogan did not say where the operation would be focused, although the question he was posed related to the Turkiye report on Iraq. He confirmed that the two countries'military chiefs discussed how to work against Kurdish militants.
