ANKARA, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Turkey and Iraq declared on Wednesday their willingness to boost bilateral cooperation and join forces against northern Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), following last month independence referendum.
"Turkey had to impose sanctions as the illegitimate referendum was held despite all of our warnings," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters at the presidential complex after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi who is visiting Ankara, insisting that "Turkey is supporting the territorial integrity of Iraq."
Erdogan said that trilateral talks between Turkey, Iran and Iraq in the aftermath of the controversial vote in the Kurdish region "are heading towards a positive point."
"We have discussed what political, military, cultural, trade and economic steps we could take" to boost relations, Erdogan said, insisting that his country would now consider the central Baghdad administration as sole interlocutor for improving ties with the neighboring country.
Abadi hailed the "fraternal" relations with Turkey and remarked that the battle against the Islamic State (IS) was coming towards an end with the government forces having retaken recently its Iraqi headquarters of Mossoul.
He also said that Iraq's authorities will continue exerting the federal power, preserving the country's unity.
Last week, Turkey said it had closed its air space to northern Iraq and work to hand control of the main border crossing into the region to the Iraqi central government.
While Abadi was traveling Wednesday to Ankara to have talks with Turkish leaders, Iraq's KRG said it's prepared to freeze the results of last month's independence referendum that triggered deadly clashes with government troops and hurt oil exports.
The KRG also proposed an immediate ceasefire and talks with Baghdad "on the basis of the constitution."
"As Iraq and Kurdistan are faced with grave and dangerous circumstances, we are all obliged to act responsibly in order to prevent further violence and clashes," the KRG said in a statement on its website.
More than 90 percent of Iraqi Kurds voted for independence in the non-binding referendum, which was fiercely opposed by Baghdad as well as neighboring countries such as Turkey and Iran, fearing it could embolden their own Kurdish minorities.
The federal government sent troops this month to retake disputed areas that Kurdish Peshmerga fighters had seized in 2014 after IS routed Iraqi forces, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, important also for Turley because of the its turcoman minority.
The clashes led to the interruption of output at some of Iraq's northern oil fields, reducing exports. Output halted at some sections of the giant Kirkuk oil field and other nearby deposits after federal forces captured them from the Kurds and as some workers and guards stayed away from work.
Iraq had been exporting close to 600,000 barrels a day on average this year from fields in Kirkuk and the Kurdish enclave, shipping them together through the same pipeline to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has hinted that his government wants to take control of revenue generated from Kurdish oil exports, following the controversial ban on international flights to and from the Kurdistan Region.
President Erdogan also said that Turkey was ready to give all support to Baghdad as it seeks to reopen the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, through which Iraq stopped sending oil in 2014.
Abadi said in a tweet that his government wanted to pay monthly salaries of KRG employees with money from Kurdish oil sales.
"Federal government control of oil revenues is in order to pay KRG employee salaries in full and so that money will not go to the corrupt," Abadi tweeted.
Turkey and Baghdad who had difficult ties in the past over Turkey's presence at a military base in northern Iraq, have operated a spectacular rapprochement after the KRG referendum.
Ankara has since been training with the Iraqi army, and achieved to rally Teheran's support in order to isolate the Kurdish regime with whom she enjoyed vast trade relations.
