At least 8 civilians were killed, on Wednesday, and 20 others were wounded, as a bombing attributed to Baghdad to Turkey hit a tourist resort in Zakho in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, AFP quoted local sources as saying.
The mayor of Zakho district, Mushir Bashir, said that “five people, including tourists” from Iraqi areas from outside the region, were killed in the bombing of a resort near the village of Barakh in Zakho border with Turkey.
He added that “among the dead were a child and a woman,” noting that “Turkey bombed the village of Barakhi twice today.”
An official in the Kurdistan Regional Government, in turn, spoke of “at least five people killed” and “others injured.”
And accounts on social networking sites in Iraq published pictures of the first moments of the bombing and the first aid for the injured.
In a tweet, Iraqi President Barham Salih condemned the Turkish bombing, saying it constituted a “violation of the country’s sovereignty and a threat to national security.”
The Turkish bombing of Dohuk, which resulted in the death and injury of a number of our sons, is condemned and denounced, and represents a violation of the country’s sovereignty and a threat to Iraqi national security, and its repetition is totally unacceptable after previous calls to stop such actions contrary to international law and the rules of good neighborliness.
— Barham Salih (@BarhamSalih) July 20, 2022
For its part, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that bombing The attack on a tourist village near its border in northern Iraq was a “terrorist attack” and called on the Iraqi authorities to avoid making statements influenced by “propaganda of a terrorist organization”, in reference to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is active in the region.
The ministry said, in Official statementAnkara is “sad” for the victims of the attack, that it “takes the utmost care to avoid civilian casualties or damage to historical or cultural sites” and is “ready to take any necessary steps to uncover the truth behind the attack.”
The Turkish army constantly carries out cross-border operations and launches air strikes on northern Iraq, which it says are PKK positions.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Turkey and other countries have listed as a terrorist organization for decades, uses the northern mountains of Iraq as a springboard for its operations in the framework of the decades-old insurgency against the Turkish state and its army.
And last April, Turkey launched a military operation against Kurdish militants in the Matina region of northern Iraq, in which about 5,000 soldiers participated, backed by helicopters, drones, and special forces that carried out landings.
Iraq has previously called on Turkey to end its military activities on its soil, but Ankara accuses Baghdad of tolerating the presence of the PKK, and refuses to end its cross-border attacks.