Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States has removed two Kurdish movements from the State Department list of terrorist organizations.

In 2001, the State Department, under pressure from Turkey, placed a range of Kurdish groups on the terror list. They were classified as a Tier-3 terror group under the Patriot Act, passed in wake of the Al Qaida suicide air strikes on New York and Washington.

A senior official said the State Department removed the Kurdistan Democratic Union and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan from the U.S. list of terrorist groups.

The official said the removal under the National Defense Authorization Act would enable Iraqi Kurdish leaders to travel to the United States to discuss the war against Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

“Congress has passed the NDAA with a provision removing PUK and KDP from the list of designated organizations under U.S. immigration laws,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Brett McGurk said.

In a statement on Dec. 13, McGurk, President Barack Obama’s envoy in the war against ISIL, acknowledged that the two Kurdish groups should have been removed from the State Department list long ago. He did not elaborate.

[Related: U.S. official with checkered past overseeing ISIL offensive, Iraq’s new military, Dec. 12.]

“This unfair designation complicated visa processing for many Kurds wishing to visit the U.S.,” McGurk said. “We are pleased to see it fixed.”

But in 2014, Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government lobbied for the removal of Kurdish groups from the State Department list. At one point, KRG President Masoud Barzani refused to meet Obama until Washington pledged to end the terror designation. Officials said the State Department decision must be approved by Obama.

“We hope that he will sign it,” KRG chief of staff Fuad Hussein said.

  U.S. drops ‘unfair designation’ of Kurdish groups’ as terrorists, WorldTribune.com