Kurdish security members stand guard near a restaurant where Turkish diplomats and Turkish consulate employee were killed in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, July 17, 2019. Photo: Reuters
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— At least two people including a Turkish diplomat were shot dead on Wednesday in a rare attack in the Iraqi Kurdistan capital city of Erbil, Kurdish security officials and Turkey’s foreign ministry said.
A gunman opened fire at a restaurant where Turkish diplomats were dinning before fleeing in a car driven by an accomplice, two Kurdish security officials and a witness said.
Security forces began a search for the attackers, the Kurdish officials said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said one of those killed was a diplomat working at its consulate to Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region in Erbil.
A statement from the Kurdistan region’s internal security service said two people were killed – the diplomat and another civilian – and one other person wounded.
The Kurdish officials and Iraqi state television earlier said three people were killed and that they were all Turkish diplomats and included the deputy consul.
One witness told Reuters that an attacker entered the restaurant and started shooting before he fled in a car that was waiting for him outside.
Security officials responded to an incident at the HuQQabaz restaurant located in an upscale commercial area on Erbil’s main Airport Road, according to Rudaw TV.
The area was immediately sealed off and office workers, shoppers and diners were told to avoid the neighbourhood.
A witness told AFP that one attacker entered the restaurant and started shooting before he fled in a car waiting outside.
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, the Kurdish security service and Iraq’s Baghdad-based foreign ministry condemned the attack.
The shooting came days after Turkey launched “Operation Claw-2” against Kurdish PKK rebels. It was not known if Wednesday’s incident was linked to Operation Claw 2.
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalim vowed a response against “those who are responsible for this atrocious attack,” in a Twitter post in Turkish.
Turkey fights Kurdish militants
Turkey’s main enemy in Iraqi Kurdistan is the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkish Kurdistan in the southeast of the country and has bases across the border.
Ankara’s forces regularly carry out air raids against PKK targets in Iraqi Kurdistan with the tacit approval of the KDP which has close ties with the Turkish government.
Turkey and the ruling Kurdish party in Erbil, the Barzani’s KDP, have blamed the PKK for other Turkey-related incidents in Iraqi Kurdistan including the storming of a Turkish military camp earlier this year.
It was a rare major security incident in Erbil, where a new Kurdistan president and prime minister, part of a clan that has controlled the KDP for decades, recently took office. The KDP has said it will continue to cooperate closely with Ankara against the PKK.
“Nobody invited them (the PKK) here,” Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in an interview with Reuters this month.
“We disapprove of their activities and … of their presence here. We understand the concerns of the neighbouring countries about security issues,” he said, adding that Erbil would look to strengthen relations with Turkey.
Iraq’s central government in Baghdad has occasionally condemned those air strikes, but has not moved to halt them.
Turkey has been engaged in military operations in the Kurdish areas of Syria and Iraq, including the Yazidi Sinjar area and Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
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