Turkish planes violate Iraq’s airspace in Kurdistan

SULAIMANIYA / IraqiNews.com: Turkish military aircrafts violated the Iraqi airspace in Qandeel mountain region and Bashdar district, northeast of Sulaimaniya in Kurdistan, according to the district’s mayor. “The Turkish aircrafts hovered Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 20) over Qandeel mountain region and Bashdar district, northeast of Sulaimaniya,” Hassan Abdallah told IraqiNews.com news agency. The hovering comes after a ‘peace messengers’ delegation crossed Iraq’s Kurdistan region into Turkish territories on Monday (Oct. 19). A total of 28 persons representing the ‘peace messengers’ delegation entered the Turkish territories and returned to their houses. The Turkish government has been working on a Kurdish initiative that is expected to give greater freedoms to Turkey’s large Kurdish minority, including language rights by which Kurdish may be taught in public universities. The reform process is seen as vital to boosting Turkey’s European Union membership application and ending a 25-year conflict between the state and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) , which has killed more than 40,000 people. It is unlikely to be a success without political consensus. Turkey’s estimated 12 million Kurds, of a population of 72 million, have long complained of discrimination by the state.Turkey has been fighting the PKK since 1984 when it took up arms to carve out a homeland in southeastern Turkey. SH (S)/SR 1