[17][18][19][20][21][22][23] In July 1983, the PKK and KDP had signed an accord agreeing upon unity to fight imperialism, with American imperialism being at the top of the list, as the United States supported Saddam Hussein at the time, and was considered an enemy by Kurdish nationalists.

[25] The alliance between the PUK and KDP did not last long, and the Iraqi Kurdish Civil War erupted.

[26][27] During the civil war, the KDP effectively pushed the PKK out of many areas in Duhok Governorate, and had "crushed in a few short months an organization that Turkey had been unable to in more than eleven years of warfare.

[29] Abdullah Öcalan claimed that the KDP were merely "primitive nationalist forces", while the PKK were "revolutionary patriots".

Abdullah Öcalan claimed that the KDP had a role in forming the village guard system.

In a statement on February 27, 2021, Masoud Barzani emphasized that the Kurdish authorities could not rebuild 800 villages because of the PKK, adding they would not tolerate the group's presence in the region.

A few days before the operation, the Kurdistan Regional Government banned the PÇDK after they protested in front of the Kurdistan Region Parliament to commemorate a massacre of PKK members by the KDP in Erbil in 1997, during the Iraqi Kurdish Civil War.

[40][41][42] Adham Barzani criticised the KDP for its ties with Turkey, and opposed Turkish military presence in Iraqi Kurdistan.

He claimed that the PKK served Turkish interests and was used by Turkey as an excuse to attack civilians.

He also accused the PKK of harshly persecuting Syrian Kurds and ruling with authoritarianism in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

[48] In 2022, the Deputy Minister of Peshmerga, Sarbast Lazgin released a statement to the Kurdistan 24 channel, saying that "some of Iraq's PMF, the Government of Syria, and the Lebanese Hezbollah are allied with PKK, they support each other and work together toward the same goals.

This alliance has an open route all the way from Syria, through Sinjar, Mosul, Kirkuk, and to Iran, which is under control of PMF, The PKK has military bases near Chamchamal District, Sulaymaniyah Governorate, from where they cooperate with the groups that launch rockets on Erbil, We, the KRG, have repeatedly called on the PKK to stop its armed operations in the Kurdistan Region."

He also stated that the PKK fighting has no impact on Turkey, and all it does is drag the Turkish Army deeper into the Kurdistan Region.

"[50] A representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government to the Iraqi Armed Forces, Command General Abdul-Khaliq Talaat, stated that “Sinjar will not be stable as long as the PKK and the other outlawed armed militias stay there" and he called on the Iraqi government to work with the KRG in order to remove the PKK.