The report comes amid Turkish army operation into the Syrian Kurdish town of Afrin.

“One of the issues we have discussed with Iraq is a joint operation against the PKK’s presence in Sinjar province. They told us ‘PKK is no different from DAESH [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – ISIL], let’s cooperate against this threat,’” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told daily Hurriyet on his return from his one-day visit to Baghdad late Jan. 21.

Cavusoglu held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and other senior Iraqi officials, as the Turkish army carries out Operation Olive Branch against the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin.

The YPG is controlling around a quarter of Syrian territories as a result of its cooperation with the United States in the fight against IS. The PKK’s control of Sinjar helps increase the YPG’s and its influence along the border.

“Furthermore, [Iraqi officials] told us that they will secure control and security of the Syrian border along the Sinjar region and that they will completely stop PKK-YPG infiltration,” Cavusoglu said. “And we told them that we’ll grant them all the necessary support in their efforts and that we altogether can do our best to clean Iraq from all terrorists.”

Reporter’s code: 50101