Ten militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were killed in airstrikes on northern Iraq suspected to have been launched by Turkey, Agence France-Presse reported, citing Iraqi Kurdish authorities on Thursday.
Two weeks ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledged to “intensify” Turkey’s airstrikes in Syria and Iraq targeting fighters from the Kurdish militant group, which Ankara and its Western allies see as a “terrorist” group.
The announcement followed an October 1 suicide attack that injured two policemen in Ankara. The attack was claimed by the PKK, which has waged a decades-long war against Turkey.
“Nine PKK fighters were killed in a series of airstrikes launched by Turkish warplanes and drones” in Arbil province in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, the Kurdish counter-terrorism service said in a statement.
A tenth PKK member was killed and three others wounded in “the bombing of several locations” belonging to the group in Dohuk province, it added.
Turkey’s defense ministry on Thursday confirmed conducting airstrikes on targets in five areas of northern Iraq, saying “many terrorists were neutralized.”
“A total of 19 targets including caves, shelters and depots used by terrorists.. were successfully destroyed and many terrorists were neutralized,” it said of the strikes which were carried out on Wednesday.
The Turkish military rarely comments on its operations in Iraq but it frequently carries out ground and air offensives against the PKK and its positions in northern Iraq.
Earlier this month, Turkey’s parliament extended the military’s authorization to launch cross-border operations in Syria and Iraq by two more years.
Such operations were first approved in 2013 to support the international campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group, and have since been renewed annually.
Over the past 25 years, Turkey has installed dozens of military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan to fight against the PKK, which also has outposts there.
The Iraqi federal government in Baghdad and Kurdish authorities in Arbil have for years been accused of turning a blind eye to the Turkish bombardments to preserve their strategic alliance with Ankara, a key trading partner, despite statements protesting violations of Iraqi sovereignty and harm to civilians.
In summer 2022, nine people died when artillery shells hit a recreational park in the Iraqi Kurdish border village of Parakh, with most of those killed holidaymakers from southern Iraq.
Baghdad blamed Turkey for the strike but Ankara denied responsibility and pointed the finger at the PKK.
In late July, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani’s office announced that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would visit Iraq but so far, no date has been set.