Turkish diplomat, one other shot dead in Iraqi Kurdistan capital
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.
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, the Kurdish security service and Iraq’s Baghdad-based foreign ministry condemned the attack.
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.
Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG), led by Barzani’s KDP party blames the PKK for instigating Turkish airstrikes in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Iraq’s central government in Baghdad has occasionally condemned those air strikes, but has not moved to halt them.
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.
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | Reuters
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