KDP forces along with the Turkish army are fighting PKK militants: Kurdish MP says 

Peshmerga forces loyal to the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) are supporting the Turkish army in its Operation Claw Lock launched early this week against Kurdistan Workers Party's (PKK) militants seeking refuge in the mountainous areas of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, an MP from the Kurdistan parliament told The New Arab on Tuesday. 

"Forces loyal to the KDP that are within the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of ministries of peshmerga affairs and interior are aiding the Turkish army in fighting the PKK in the Kurdistan region," Balanbo Mohammad Ali, an MP from the ruling Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and member in the Kurdistan parliament's peshmerga committee said to The New Arab in response to a media inquiry request via WhatsApp.

"Roj Peshmerga, that consist of Syrian Kurds {trained by Turkey} and equipped by the KDP from the public budget, are also fighting along with the Turkish army against PKK," he claimed. 

Ali said that the Kurdistan parliament has not noticed nor acknowledged KDP's involvement in the fight against the PKK. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said that both Baghdad and the leaders of the autonomous Kurdish region based in Erbil supported Turkey's ground and air assault.

The MP also added that KDP's purpose from this move is "to create chaos to divert the attention of the people of Kurdistan from local issues and comes days after the KRG PM Masrour Barzani met with Erdogan." 

"The deployment of Iraqi armed forces into the Kurdistan region needs an authorisation from the president of the Kurdistan region who subsequently should be authorized by the Kurdistan parliament," Ali noted, further stressing that neither KRG's minister of peshmerga affairs nor PUK agreed to this deployment or to fight against the PKK. 

However, a well-informed source speaking on the condition of anonymity told The New Arab that there is an agreement between Turkey, Iraq, and the two main Kurdish parties, the KDP and the PUK, to "totally eliminate the PKK fighters from the Kurdistan region." 

For his part, the secretary-general of the KRG ministry of peshmerga, Jabar Yawar, denied to The New Arab any involvement with the Turkish military operation in Iraq. 

"We neither participate in this operation nor have any relation with any Turkish military and intelligence agencies. News reports of our involvement in this operation are not true," he said.  

The PKK has been waging an insurgency for greater autonomous rights against the Turkish state since 1984, with tens of thousands estimated to have been killed so far.