Thursday, March 28, 2024

Baghdad

PKK says attack against Turkish army launched from Turkey

ANKARA/IraqiNews.com:An official from Kurdistan’s Workers party (OKK) denied the attack staged against Turkish army troops was launched from Iraq. “The attack against Turkish army troops was launched by PKK force from Turkey (North Kurdistan and not from Iraq (south Kurdistan)”. Turkey accused Iraq’s Kurdistan region of tolerating Kurdish gunmen who killed 15 Turkish soldiers in an attack staged on Friday. In the worst single attack on the military in a year, gunmen of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Friday raided a military outpost in a region in southeast Turkey bordering Iraq. Twenty soldiers were wounded and two more are still missing. The Turkish chief of staffs said the attack was helped with heavy weapons from northern Iraq (Kurdistan region). Chief of Kurdistan’s presidential office Fuad Hussein said his regional government did not provide help to PKK fighters, stressing the regional government condemned the attack. NATO-member Turkey has attacked PKK bases in northern Iraq several times in the past 12 months but has confined itself to shelling and air strikes since a brief land offensive in February, which Ankara cut short under U.S. pressure. Washington and the EU, which Ankara hopes to join, are concerned that prolonged Turkish military operations inside Iraq could further destabilize Iraq and the wider region. AM(S) 6

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