ERBIL, Iraq—Tensions are rising in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where officials in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) are speaking out against the long-accommodated but increasingly unwelcome Kurdistan Workers’ Party, better known as the PKK. The intensified rhetoric—complemented by a new security agreement between authorities in Erbil and Baghdad that takes a decidedly anti-PKK stance—seems to be part of a coordinated effort to pressure the group to leave its historic hideouts in the mountains of northern Iraq.
The Oct. 8 assassination of a Kurdish border official—which the KRG’s security forces said was perpetrated by the PKK—and attacks on a key pipeline and Peshmerga soldiers in early November have brought to the fore the long-simmering tensions between the KRG and PKK. The latter group is making it known that it has no intention of leaving Iraq peacefully.
