Now Fairfax Media has evidence the PKK are coordinating closely with Peshmerga forces, undertaking joint military operations and providing covert surveillance of Islamic State fighters in several towns and villages around Kurdistan and Iraq. PKK fighters at the Daquq PKK base. Credit:Ruth Pollard There is not yet any indication that PKK fighters are using Australian-delivered munitions Kurdish officials say have been distributed across the region's vast 1050 kilometre frontline, but it is clear the two forces are working hand-in-hand in many areas. When Prime Minister Tony Abbott first announced Australia's renewed military involvement in Iraq, he was asked about concerns that arms delivered by the RAAF could fall into the hands of the PKK. His response: the Kurdish government had assured the US and others that the weapons will be used by the Peshmerga. But in the chaos of war, no one is in a position to make those guarantees.

To enter the PKK base in Daquq, which lies about 55 kilometres south of Kirkuk towards Baghdad, you must first pass through a checkpoint controlled by Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Commander Badr Khan standing under a flag featuring the image of Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader. Credit:Ruth Pollard From there it is a slow drive through the soft sand around a series of tightly positioned chicanes to get to the base where around 120 fighters are protecting this part of the frontline against Islamic State militants who are dug in less than a kilometre away. The unit's commander Badr Khan, says two special forces units arrived 25 days ago after coming down from their secret base on Qandil Mountain to fight side-by-side with Kurdish forces to liberate the town of Makhmur. PKK fighters returning to their unit at the Daquq PKK base embrace after a night on the frontline. Credit:Ruth Pollard

For three terrible days in August, Makhmur was overrun by Islamic State militants - it the closest they had come to the capital Erbil, about 50 kilometres to the north, and the battle was one of the defining moments so far in the Kurdish and Iraqi fight to regain control of their territory from the Sunni extremists. "Here we decide together with the Peshmerga what and how we run our military operations, we decide together whether to defend or attack the Islamic State," Commander Khan says, the flag featuring the image of Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK, the left-leaning Kurdistan Workers Party, on the wall beside him. Commander Nuve Rojhat (centre) with some of the fighters in her unit at the Daquq PKK base. Credit:Ruth Pollard Along with helping to rescue thousands of stranded Yazidis from Mount Sinjar, PKK fighters are also active along the frontlines in several other towns including Basheer, just outside Kirkuk, he says. "To me, Da'ash are the terrorist group – they are an organisation without an aim. They talk about Islam and yet they do not live it, all they are doing is killing people and you cannot find any justification for that in Islamic law," Commander Khan says.

Commander Nuve Rojhat of the PKK at the Daquq PKK base 50 kilometres south of Kirkuk. Credit:Ruth Pollard "They are pushing an idea that is impossible to understand or conceive in this century, it is beyond humanity, they are talking about an Islamic system from 1400 years ago and it is not possible for this to exist today." It is not just the Kurds or Iraqis under threat from the Islamic State, he says, but the whole region. PKK fighters at the Daquq PKK base after a night gathering intelligence on the frontline. Credit:Ruth Pollard "If the international community do not want to help us fight Da'ash by arming us, fine, but they should make sure that they give humanitarian aid to the people we are rescuing - the Yazidis, Christians and other minorities the extremists are killing."

Najat Ali Salah, a Peshmerga commander stationed in Makhmur, speaks openly about the military cooperation between Kurdish forces and the PKK – it is clear Makhmur could not have been won without it. A PKK fighter rests after a night on the frontline. Credit:Ruth Pollard "We have a good relationship with the PKK," he says, but acknowledges, "sometimes the media says this relationship is not a good thing." "The reality is they exist here, there is a PKK camp nearby of people who fled Turkey 20 years ago." In the recent battle to win back Makhmur from the Islamic State, first the PKK fighters defended their camp and then they came into the town, collaborating with the Peshmerga to drive the Sunni insurgents out beyond Makhmur's borders and into the remote outlying villages.

"We always coordinate with them - when we work with the PKK here they are under our command," says Commander Salah, who is also a regional leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK) in Makhmur. One of the PKK fighters who helped to liberate Makhmur was Nuve Rojhat, the 30-year-old commander of the region's unit of female fighters, who fight alongside and have equal rank to their male counterparts. She unwinds the kaffiyeh that has been protecting her face from the sand and dumps her AK47 on the ground, tired after a night collecting intelligence on the frontline with her unit in Daquq. They have been observing Islamic State troop movements, tracking their position along the IS front line, watching them dig trenches and change position under the cover of darkness, she says. "We have been stationed here for one month, we came down from Qandil Mountain to fight in Makhmur and once it was secure we came here."

Near the Iraq-Iran border, Qandil Mountain has been a PKK stronghold for years - it controls about 50 kilometres of the rocky, virtually impenetrable mountain and the terrain makes it easier for the PKK guerrillas to escape Turkish and Iranian air strikes. "When we were fighting to liberate our camp in Makhmur we were alone, but when we moved on to liberate the city we worked with the Peshmerga - we liberated the Kurdish area and they liberated the Arab area and together we liberated Makhmur." War is not easy, she says. "It was a hard fight, we killed many people and watched more run away, but … we gained strength from the fact that these people [IS] are somehow not human, they are so different from us. "They do not like to fight women, they believe they will go to hell if they are killed by a woman, but what they hate most is that Kurdish women have rights and they want to take those rights away from us."

Commander Rojhat joined the PKK when she was just 14 years old, "they wouldn't let me fight until I was 18", she says, grinning, and she has a broad philosophy that stretches way beyond her struggle or that of the PKK. "We are here to support all women, not just Kurdish women. They [IS] believe women are less than human, that we are just there to be used by them - they were selling Yazidi women in Mosul for just $20 and we are the ones fighting against that. "We want the world to know the PKK is not a terrorist organisation, we are the ones standing on the frontlines against Da'ash, we are the ones fighting these terrorists." The PKK was listed as a terrorist organisation by Australia on December 17 December 2005, re-listed September 28, 2007, September 8, 2009 and as recently as August 18, 2012. The US and EU have also designated it a terrorist group after it fought a 30-year war for independence against the Turkish Government. But as both Turkey and the PKK have evolved, so too have its aims and since the 1990s it has called for autonomy for Kurds within Turkey, the Australian National Security site says, and the right to maintain ethnic identity.

It is clear much has changed for the PKK. The Turkish Government has been directly negotiating with the group's leader, Ocalan, who in 2013 called for a ceasefire and for PKK forces to withdraw from Turkey. Loading And now some European politicians are openly discussing removing the terrorist designation assigned to the PKK, encouraged by developments in Turkey and by the PKK's prominent role in the fight against Islamic State terrorists. Given the PKK is now an open and important partner in the international fight against the Islamic State - a "death cult" according to Mr Abbott - it remains to be seen whether Australia will do the same.