Kurdish Iranian dissident groups based in northern Iraq are preparing for a potential cross-border military operation in Iran, and the U.S. has asked Iraqi Kurds to support them, Kurdish officials have told The Associated Press.

Syrian government forces have entered two northern towns after Kurdish-led fighters agreed to evacuate.

Iraq’s Supreme Federal Court has ratified the final results of last month’s parliamentary elections.

A Turkish opposition party delegation has arrived in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region against the backdrop of peace efforts between Ankara and a banned Kurdish separatist movement in Turkey.

The leaders of two previously rival Kurdish groups have met in northern Iraq in an apparent step toward reconciliation at a time when the political upheaval in Syria has left Kurds in the region facing an uncertain future.

Iraq still doesn’t have a government, eight months since national elections took place, and there seems no clear way out of the dangerous deadlock.