Baghdad, SAEDNEWS: Qais al-Khazali, in a tweet published on his Twitter page on Wednesday, condemned Turkey's repeated violations of Iraqi sovereignty, warning that the Ankara government “is going too far with targeting civilians." “Amid the government’s deplorable silence, flagrant violation of the Iraqi sovereignty continues by Turkish occupation forces, after they established military bases in northern Iraq. The situation has exacerbated and ordinary citizens are now being targeted under flimsy claims and pretexts,” Qazali wrote.
He underlined that Iraqi resistance fighters will teach Turkish forces a tough lesson.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the aggression against our people, the bombardment of a refugee camp and increasing the suffering of [internally] displaced persons. We affirm that the barbaric Turkish moves will not go unanswered, and will be dealt with when the time is ripe. We will force them to withdraw from the Iraqi soil, as we did with respect to American occupation troops,” Khazali pointed out.
Sirwan Barzani, a commander of Kurdish Peshmerga forces, told Rudaw televiaion news network that Turkish airstrikes targeted the surroundings of Makhmour refugee camp and a base belonging to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group in Mount Qarachogh, causing casualties and material damage.
Iraq's Security Media Cell, in a statement, called for a halt to Turkish attacks on Iraqi territories, saying, “Iraq is fully prepared for bilateral cooperation and to control the security situation on common borders” with Turkey.
The Turkish Defense Ministry on Wednesday confirmed the attack, adding that it marked the launch of Operation Winter Eagle against the positions of PKK and the so-called People's Protection Units (YPG) in northern Iraq and Syria.
Militants of the PKK — designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union — regularly clash with Turkish forces in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of Turkey attached to northern Iraq.
A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.
More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group (Source: PRESSTV).
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