Turkish army says killed 91 Kurdish militants in northern Iraq
PKK members. File Photo
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Turkish strikes in northern Iraq have killed 91 Kurdish militants in the last week, the armed forces staff declared on Saturday as Turkey continues to target fighters it designates as terrorists.
The Turkish armed forces staff said in a tweet that “In the anti-terrorism operation, between the dates of 17-23 March 2018, one of the leading cadres of 91 terrorists have been neutralized, various types of 34 weapons have been seized, 29 handmade explosives were identified and destroyed”.
Iraq on Thursday denounced Turkish airstrikes on anti-Ankara, Kurdish fighters’ locations in the north of the country that left a number of civilians dead.
In a statement, the foreign ministry spokesperson, Ahmed Mahgoub, said “The Iraqi foreign ministry denounces the continuation of aggressions and transgressions upon Iraqi borders by the Turkish forces, the latest of which was the strike that targeted the villages of Mawan, Qassan and Sarkinan in Soran, Erbil, which led to the martyrdom of a number of unarmed civilians”.
The statement said those “violations…do not serve the development of relations between both neighbor countries”. It added it “reaffirms its stance of rejecting the presence of any forces on Iraqi soil or any attempt to carry out military operations by any neighboring country”.
Earlier on Thursday, Kurdish media reported the death of four civilians in Turkish strikes on the borders with Iraq.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara on Monday his country would, at any time, launch operations in Iraq’s northern Sinjar region against PKK, a group designated by Ankara as a terrorist group for engaging in decades of armed confrontations with it. Ankara has regularly conducted airstrikes against PKK locations in northern Iraq.
Turkey has also been carrying out offensives since January against Kurdish factions in Afrin, northwest of Syria, which it believes are extension of the PKK.