Nine civilians, including women and children, were killed and 23 wounded on Wednesday in northern Iraq by suspected artillery fire, according to local authorities. The Iraqi authorities accused Turkey and denounced a “violation of the country’s sovereignty” and threatened to “retaliate”.
In this region of northern Iraq, Ankara is fighting rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK. Therefore, for Baghdad there is no doubt that the nine civilians killed and the 23 wounded on Wednesday in a recreational park in Iraqi Kurdistan were victims of Turkish artillery fire.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazimi took an unusually firm tone toward his Turkish neighbor, condemning in a statement a “flagrant violation of its sovereignty” committed by Ankara.
The victims, at least three women, two children and three men, were mostly “Iraqi Arab tourists, mostly from central and southern Iraq,” Mushir Bashir, head of the Zakho district, told AFP.
This mountainous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, located near the border with Turkey, is very popular with Iraqis from the center and south of the country, who flee the scorching temperatures of summer to find some coolness.
No confirmation from Ankara
According to Mounir Bashir, “Turkey has attacked the village twice today.” However, a source from the Turkish Defense Ministry assured AFP that they had “no information or confirmation of artillery fire in the area.”
Ankara, which has de facto set up several dozen military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan in the last 25 years, launched a new military operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party rebels in northern Iraq in mid-April.
Outside a Zakho hospital, a bandaged-headed Hassan Tahsin Ali said he had miraculously survived the deluge of fire that fell on the park and its canals, where visitors were enjoying a relaxing moment.
“We come from the province of Babylon (central Iran),” the young man told AFP in a calm voice. “There were indiscriminate attacks on us, there were dead bodies in the water,” he added. “Our young people are dead, our children are dead, who do we turn to? We only have God.”
“More than 20 buses entered the park and 15 minutes later there was heavy shelling, no less than five rockets,” said another survivor interviewed by the Iraqi news agency IANS.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazimi sent his Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein and several top security officials to the scene of the attacks. For his part, Iraqi President Barham Saleh condemned the “Turkish bombing,” denouncing it as “a violation of the country’s sovereignty and a threat to national security.”
Iraq “reserves the right to retaliate”
“The repetition of the bombing is unacceptable” and his country has protested several times against the incursions carried out by Ankara.
“The Turkish forces have once again perpetrated a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” Mustafa al-Kazimi also denounced on Twitter, who criticized the attack “against the life and security of Iraqi citizens.” “Iraq reserves the right to retaliate against these attacks and will take all necessary measures to protect its people,” he threatened.
The Turkish military operations are complicating relations between the Iraqi central government and Ankara, one of Iraq’s main trading partners. The Turkish ambassador in Baghdad is regularly summoned to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. But Iraqi warnings are often ineffective.
At night, despite a heavy police presence, a few dozen people demonstrated in front of a Turkish visa issuing center in Kerbala (center), burning a Turkish flag, an AFP photographer noted. A similar rally was held in Nassiriya (south).
Turkish drones in the Kurdish sky
Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, has a complicated relationship with the PKK, as its presence in the region hampers its vital trade relations with neighboring Turkey. On July 17, an armed drone – Turkish, according to local Iraqi officials – targeted a car west of Mosul, a major city in northern Iraq, killing the driver, who could be identified, and his four passengers, including a woman.
“The clashes between the Turkish forces and the PKK in the border areas have become a permanent threat and a danger to the lives of citizens,” the Kurdistan Regional Government said in a statement on Wednesday.
The four passengers were identified by the Kurdistan security services as PKK fighters. A month earlier, four PKK “fighters” were killed in Iraqi Kurdistan in an attack by “Turkish army drones”, according to the authorities of this autonomous region.
*With AFP; adapted from its original French version
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