Turkey may shut Iraq border any moment

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey may shut its border with northern Iraq “at any moment” after closing its air space to the region, Hurriyet newspaper reported on Thursday, reviving a threat first made after Kurds there voted for independence.

“We have completely closed our air space to the regional government in northern Iraq,” the paper cited Erdogan as telling reporters on his plane returning from a trip to Poland.

“Talks are continuing on what will be done regarding the land [border] … We have not shut the border gates yet but this could happen too at any moment,” he added.

Turkey announced on Monday it was closing its air space to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and said it would work to hand control of the main border crossing into the region to the central Iraqi government.

The Habur gate is the main transit point between Turkey and Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government.

Read: Major oil pipeline between Iraq and Turkey to bypass Kurdish region

A 25 September referendum, in which Kurds in northern Iraq voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, has caused tensions in the region with Kurdish officials claiming the result meant talks of Kurdish secession from Iraq were not inevitable.

However on Tuesday, Kurdish forces withdraw without resistance as the Iraqi Army advanced into disputed territories including the oil rich city of Kirkuk.

Ankara, which has been battling a three-decade insurgency in its own mainly Kurdish southeast, fears an independent Kurdish state on its borders would heighten separatist tension at home.