A standoff is building between the Iraqi and Turkish governments over the status of Turkish troops in northern Iraq. If a statement made Wednesday by an Iraqi lawmaker is any indication, the Turkish government could face a difficult winter trying to contain the Kurdish militant threat.

Iskander Witwit, the head of the Iraqi parliamentary security committee, said Wednesday that the Iraqi government is considering canceling an agreement allowing Turkish troops to maintain a presence in northern Iraq. Meanwhile, according to Witwit, Baghdad is also urging Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government to allow Iraqi government troops to deploy to the Turkish border. The lawmaker said the troops would protect Iraqi sovereignty by preventing Turkish forces from pursuing across the border militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known commonly as the PKK, who typically retreat to northern Iraq's Mount Qandil region each winter.

This is just the latest attempt by Baghdad (and Iran, by extension) to undermine Turkey's leverage in the Kurdish north. To prevent the PKK from using northern Iraq as a launching pad for attacks inside Turkey, the Turkish military has maintained a limited presence in the region since the mid-1990s, when it was engaged in particularly heavy military operations against the rebel group. Recently, however, the Iranian-backed Iraqi Cabinet has become unnerved by Turkey's attempts to expand its footprint in Iraq and has been pushing the Iraqi parliament to abrogate all treaties permitting foreign troops in the country. In spite of those efforts, Turkey approved a yearlong extension of its military operations in northern Iraq on Oct. 11.

Baghdad is now escalating the dispute by courting the Kurdish government's approval for the Iraqi troop deployment, a move tantamount to Baghdad saying it will protect the PKK's refuge. Senior PKK commander Murat Karayilan has reportedly been calling on his fighters to carry out suicide attacks in major Turkish cities during the upcoming months, when rough terrain and snow in Turkey's southeast makes the hit-and-run attacks against police and military targets typically conducted by the group more difficult. Turkey cannot absorb the political cost of major attacks, and it is facing growing domestic pressure to mitigate the threat with more forceful military tactics. So the last thing Ankara needs is Baghdad barring it from the PKK's winter refuge.

This puts the Kurdistan Regional Government in a very tight spot. The Iraqi Kurdish authorities are loath to have either Turkish or Iraqi government troops on its soil. For now, both Ankara and Baghdad are trying to court Kurdish officials with incentives to ensure Kurdish oil exports. But the Iraqi Kurds are also well aware that Turkey, Iraq and Iran share an interest in undermining Kurdish autonomy over the long run. The Kurdish leadership, especially Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani, is no stranger to such negotiating challenges, and the Kurds have a history of being presented with two bad options. Barzani will attempt to deal with both Ankara and Baghdad, offering the former tacit assistance against the PKK and the latter continued energy cooperation. Some level of double-crossing is inevitable in this arrangement.

Turkey, however, faces a much larger dilemma. The PKK cannot be treated as a monolithic entity, especially considering that the Syrian and Iranian regimes have been bolstering support for splinter factions in the organization in an effort to gain leverage against Turkey. Meanwhile, the mainstream bloc led by Karayilan and Abdullah Ocalan, one of the group's founders, is trying to maintain organizational coherence and avoid being eclipsed by competing factions. Turkey therefore cannot only rely on Barzani and the clout he exercises over the PKK in their winter domain. Moreover, Turkey must also deal with Iran on this issue, which is only one aspect of a much broader negotiation between the two regional competitors over the future of Syria.