Erdogan once again threatens food sanctions on Kurdistan

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday once again threatened the Kurdistan Region with economic sanctions that would entail a ban on the sale of food, clothes, and medicine, over last month's referendum on independence from Iraq.

"The airspace is now closed. No more flights from Erbil to anywhere. Because we have the most important airspace," Erdogan said.

"We want the people to see what the local government of northern Iraq did to them and expect from the people to give [the administration] a lesson," he added, refraining from using Kurdistan Region's name.

"But, of course, we will continue [acting] on our humane sensitivities. All the humanitarian aid to the people of northern Iraq will flow through the central government," he said, reiterating his full cooperation with Baghdad whose army and militias took over the Kurdish-majority city of Kirkuk earlier this week.

Last month, a day after Kurdistan's referendum on independence from Iraq, Erdogan threatened the Kurds, a main regional commerce partner, with hunger.

Kurdistan Region heavily relies on commercial lines worth of tens of billions of US dollars with its two neighbors of Iran and Turkey.

Erdogan has previously criticized the Saudi Arabia-led Gulf countries food and commerce sanctions on the State of Qatar, an ally of Turkey, as something "Muslims cannot do to each other."

The Turkish President also targeted US-backed Kurdish groups which on Tuesday declared a victory over the Islamic State (IS) group, in the latter's de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria, ending its self-declared caliphate.

"No offense, my Kurdish brothers but if you happen to defend these terrorists, then our ways part," Erdogan said about the main Kurdish force Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) spearheading the anti-IS war in Syria.

Editing by Ava Homa