Baghdad blames Turkey for artillery fire that killed nine civilians
Nine people were killed and twenty-three wounded following artillery attacks on amusement parks in the autonomous region of Kurdistan. Iraq blames Turkey, but Ankara blames “terrorist organizations”.
Iraqis protested against Turkey’s military offensive on Wednesday evening. Here in the streets of Karbala in Iraqi Kurdistan.
AFP
Nine civilians, including children, were killed and 23 others wounded in an artillery attack on Turkey in northern Iraq on Wednesday.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Qassimi has adopted an unusually firm tone against his Turkish neighbors, condemning the blatant violation of its sovereignty by “Turkish forces” and accusing them of firing artillery. Autonomous region of Kurdistan. The victims of the shooting were mostly “Iraqi Arab tourists, mostly from central and southern Iraq,” Mouchir Bachir, head of Jakoh district on the border with Turkey, told AFP.
This mountainous region of Kurdistan is a popular escape for residents of central and southern Iraq from the hot summer temperatures. However, a source in the Turkish Defense Ministry assured AFP that there was “no information to report or confirm artillery fire in this area”. For its part, Turkish diplomacy considered “these types of attacks” carried out by “terrorist organizations”, calling on Iraq “not to issue statements under the influence of terrorist propaganda”.
Ankara, which has had dozens of military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan for 25 years, launched a new military operation in mid-April against Turkish-backed Kurdish rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey classifies as a “terrorist” group. its western allies.
Amir Ali, a spokesman for the Jakob medical authorities, told AFP that nine people were killed and 23 wounded in Wednesday’s shooting. At least three women, two children and three men were among the dead, he said earlier.
“Our children are dead”
Outside a hospital in Jakob, Hasan Tahsin Ali, with his head bandaged, tells AFP he miraculously survived the fire that fell on the park and its waters as visitors rested for a while. “We are from the province of Babylon (centre)”, the young man says in a toneless voice. “We had blind attacks on us, bodies in the water,” he adds. “Our youths are dead, our children are dead, to whom shall we turn? We have only God”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will “summon the Turkish Ambassador to Iraq” as per the decisions of the Ministerial National Security Council chaired by the Iraqi Prime Minister.
At a meeting on Wednesday evening, the council demanded the withdrawal of Turkish armed forces from all Iraqi territory. He called for “the recall of Iraqi officials to Ankara for consultation, and to halt the process of sending a new ambassador to Turkey,” according to a press release. Turkish military operations on Iraqi soil have complicated relations between the Iraqi central government and Ankara, one of Iraq’s leading trading partners.
They are worthy of the Turkish Ambassador in Baghdad to regularly summon the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. But Iraqi denials are usually short-lived. In the evening, despite a large police force, a few dozen people protested by burning a Turkish flag in front of the Turkish visa issuing center in Karbala (center), an AFP photographer noted.
In the capital Baghdad, protesters gathered outside a visa-issuing center attached to the embassy, and one of the participants climbed onto the roof and lowered a Turkish flag, according to two security sources, allowing police to stay out of the way.
“Constant Danger”
Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, has complicated relations with the PKK, as its presence in the region hampers its key trade ties with neighboring Turkey. “Clashes between Turkish forces and the PKK in the border areas have become a threat to the lives of civilians and a permanent danger,” the Kurdistan Regional Government condemned in a statement on Wednesday.
On July 17, an armed drone – according to Turkish local Iraqi officials – targeted a car west of the city of Mosul (north), the capital of Nineveh, a northern province bordering Kurdistan. The driver and his four passengers, identified by Kurdistan’s security forces as PKK militants, were killed in the attack. Four PKK “militants” were killed in an attack by “Turkish military drones” in Iraqi Kurdistan, according to the authorities of this autonomous region.
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