Why did Turkey expel Iraqi Kurdish leader?
Turkey abruptly shut down the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which had been in Ankara since the 1990s, following the PKK's reported abduction of Turkish intelligence agents in an area under PUK control.
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu last week visited the Kurdistan region of Iraq. His agenda with Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), focused on the independence referendum the Kurdish administration is preparing for.
Among the Kurdish officials the Turkish minister met was Sadi Pire, a member of the political bureau of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which is led by former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. But just as Cavusoglu was on his way back to the Turkish capital, the PUK’s Ankara office was shut down and people working there were asked to leave Turkey. The abrupt closure of the PUK office, which had been operating in Ankara since the 1990s, came as a surprise because nobody could explain it. Why did Turkey take such a radical step when relations with the Kurdish administration were at their best? Ankara didn’t say anything, but information obtained through leaks in Ankara indicated the decision was taken at the request of the Foreign Ministry and had to do with the seizure of Turkish intelligence agents by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish guerrilla group.
