ERBIL, Iraq 

A Kurdish peshmerga commander based in northern Iraq has called on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to withdraw from Iraq’s Kurdish region near the border with Turkey, according to a website affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the largest party in the Kurdish region’s parliament.

On Sunday, the website reported that Zaim Ali, western area commander for Kurdish peshmerga forces, had urged the PKK to withdraw from Iraq’s Kurdish region near the border with Turkey amid ongoing Turkish airstrikes against PKK positions in the region.

“The PKK’s presence in the region is not legitimate,” Ali was quoted as saying.

The PKK, he asserted, which is based in Iraq’s Kurdish region, “is responsible for the recent unrest that has broken out near the Turkish border”.

"Civilians have become the victims,” he added, in reference to recent PKK attacks near the Turkish border. “This is the PKK’s fault -- not Turkey’s.”

Within the last two weeks, the PKK has carried out several deadly attacks on Turkish security forces in Turkey’s eastern region.

Ankara has responded with a wide-ranging security sweep that has so far led to the arrest of over 1,300 suspects.

The recent violence has effectively ended a two-year-old ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had brought relative calm to Turkey following three decades of conflict.