Turkish PM set to meet Iraqi Kurdish leader

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to meet the leader of Iraq’s Kurdish regional government, Massoud Barzani, on Saturday to discuss the role of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and the situation of Syrian Kurds.

The meeting is part of Barzani’s two-day visit to Diyarbakir, a Kurd-dominated city in southeastern Turkey, the semi-official Anadolu news agency reported on Monday.

The meeting comes at a time when the Iraqi autonomous Kurdish region and the Democratic Union Party, a Syrian offshoot of the PKK, have a wide disagreement.

Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds currently enjoy close bilateral ties, especially in economic terms. The Iraqi Kurdish regional administration and the Turkish government has been working on a deal for exporting natural resources in northern Iraq.