Page "History of the Kurdistan Workers' Party" Paragraph 21

From 1982 onwards, the Iran-Iraq war gave Kurdish organisations in Northern Iraq, a free hand, because Iraq needed and moved its troops to the front in the South.

The organization used this to develop cross border attacks from Iraq.

The relations between the Marxist PKK and Barzani ’ s conservative KDP were never cordial, but the latter nevertheless allowed organization to operate from the KDP controlled areas and in the south of the Iraqi-Turkish border.

This gave the PKK two routes of penetration into Turkey, directly from Syria and over Iraq From 1986-1987, Turkey engaged with Hot pursuit towards the organization members through cross border into northern Iraq.

The cross border incidents were archived with the approval of the then-Iraqi government under president Saddam Hussein.