Baghdad: Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government called on the Kurdish Worker’s Party to “withdraw” from Iraq’s Kurdish territory Saturday to prevent civilian deaths amid a campaign of Turkish air strikes targeting the group.
A statement from the office of Kurdish President Massoud Barzani said the Kurdish Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, “should withdraw its fighters from the Kurdish region so to ensure the civilians of Kurdistan don’t become victim of that fighting and conflict.”
The statement also condemned Turkey for bombing civilians, following reports that civilian homes were damaged in air strikes in northwestern Iraq. The statement calls on both sides to resume peace talks.
“We condemn the bombing, which led to the martyrdom of the citizens of the Kurdish region, and we call on Turkey to not to repeat the bombing of civilians,” the statement added, and called upon both sides to resume a Kurdish peace process.
Sedar Sitar, an Iraq-based PKK activist, told The Associated Press that Turkish strikes destroyed at least six homes in the town of Zargel early Saturday, killing at least eight civilians and wounding 12.
Turkey launched air strikes on Kurdish rebel camps in northern Iraq last week, its first such strikes since a peace process with the Kurds was launched in 2012. The air strikes began as the US and Turkey announced the outlines of a deal to help push Daesh back from a strip of territory it controls along the Syrian-Turkish border, replacing it with more-moderate rebels backed by Washington and Ankara.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said Saturday that as many as 28 F-16 jets raided 65 PKK targets in northern Iraq, including shelters and ammunition depots on Friday. A day earlier, as many as 80 jets hit more than 100 targets, the agency said.
Anadolu claimed some 260 PKK rebels were killed and 400 were wounded since the start of the raids. The PKK has not reported on its casualties.
Meanwhile, a Kurdish militia fighting Daesh in Syria accused Turkey on Saturday of targeting it at least four times in the past week and called on US-led forces to “clarify” their approach towards Ankara in light of this.
The Syrian Kurdish YPG, which regularly coordinates with US-led air forces bombing Daesh, said it had nothing to do with violence between the PKK and Turkish state.
“Despite our official announcement that we are not part of what is happening ... the Turkish military monitors and targets our units,” it said in a statement on its website.
Turkish officials have previously said Syrian Kurdish forces remain outside the scope of their military efforts.
The YPG had already accused the Turkish army of shelling its positions from across the border last Sunday. The latest statement said it came under cross-border fire on four occasions and described sightings of Turkish jets over northern Syria.
“We consider recent movements of the Turkish military as provocative and hostile actions,” the statement said.
“We ask our partners in the US-led international coalition against Daesh to clarify their approach towards these actions of the Turkish military.” Commenting on the previous accusation, a senior Turkish official had said the Turkish army had shot back after it came under cross-border fire but said it was unclear which group was involved and stressed the YPG was not a target.
In that incident, the YPG said the Turkish army had shelled its positions in a village on the outskirts of the Daesh-held border town of Jarablus.
In the new accusations, the YPG said Turkish tanks bombarded a position used by YPG and a Syrian rebel group in Zor Maghar village west of Kobani on July 24, wounding four rebels and a number of civilians.
It said in another incident the Turkish army fired on a YPG vehicle in Tel Fender village, west of Tal Abyad, a town close to one of the border crossings.
Turkey’s renewed military campaign against the PKK, including bombarding PKK camps in Iraq, has raised suspicions that its real agenda is checking Kurdish territorial ambitions rather than fighting Daesh.
In Syria, the YPG is an important force for the US-led alliance against Daesh because it has been the only notable partner so far on the ground working with the coalition.
But the group has links to the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, creating an uneasy compromise between Washington and Ankara.
Ankara is concerned that advances by the YPG could stoke separatist sentiment among its own Kurds and embolden the PKK.