ANKARA: Senior Turkish and Iraqi officials will hold high-level talks in Ankara on Thursday to develop cooperation on security issues, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Wednesday. The neighbors have in recent years been at loggerheads over Ankara’s cross-border military operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party militants based in northern Iraq’s mountainous region. Iraq has said the operations are a violation of its sovereignty, but Ankara says they are needed to protect itself. Ties have improved since last year, when the two sides agreed to hold high-level talks on security matters, and after a visit in April by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to Baghdad, where he said relations had entered a new phase. Ankara and Baghdad have so far held three rounds of meetings as part of the dialogue mechanism, with Iraq deciding to label the PKK a “banned organization in Iraq” during the latest talks held in March — a move welcomed by Turkiye. The Turkish source said Thursday’s encounter would mark the first meeting of a “joint planning group,” which was decided during Erdogan’s trip and is headed by the respective foreign ministers. Talks would also take place to put their cooperation within an institutional and sustainable framework, the source added, saying the delegations would discuss the implementation of 27 agreements signed during Erdogan’s visit, and evaluate further joint initiatives. On Monday, Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler told Reuters that the recent steps taken by Turkiye and Iraq in terms of counter-terrorism marked a “turning point,” adding the technical work on establishing a joint operations center for the region was ongoing.