Iraq Kurds condemn Turkish air strikes on PKK

The leadership of Iraqi Kurdistan on Saturday condemned Turkish air strikes against positions of PKK Kurdish rebels in its autonomous region in the north of Iraq.

Kurdish regional President Massud Barzani spoke to Turkish Prime Minister Ahmed Davutoglu on the telephone and "expressed his displeasure with the dangerous level the situation has reached," a statement said.

"He requested that the issue not be escalated to that level because peace is the only way to solve problems and years of negotiations are better than one hour of war," Barzani said in a statement.

On Friday, the same day Turkey bombed the Islamic State group in Syria for the first time, Turkish jets also struck positions held by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Iraq.

A PKK spokesman in Iraq, Bakhtiar Dogan, told AFP one fighter was killed and three wounded in the strikes, which he said started late Friday and lasted through much of Saturday.

A medical source north of the Iraqi Kurdish city of Dohuk said two civilians, including a 12-year-old boy, were also wounded.

"We are still committed to the directives of our leader (Abdullah) Ocalan... but it seems Erdogan wants to drag us back into war," Dogan said.

"When things reach this level and when all of our areas are bombed, I think by then the ceasefire has no meaning anymore," he said.

Davutoglu said Barzani had expressed his "solidarity" with the operation when he spoke to him.

The Turkish group has long had camps in the mountains of Iraq's Kurdish region, near the border with Turkey.

The PKK and Iraq's Kurdish leadership have often been at odds in the past but both are involved in the fight against the Daesh group.

"Mr Barzani is ready to do anything within his means to appease this tension and go back to a situation of peace," the statement from his office said.

For its part, the Kurdistan region's parliament "strongly condemned" the Turkish air force's cross-border operation.

"We demand an immediate end to it. This kind of development creates anger among Kurdistan's people," a statement said.

"We had thought the government of Turkey would not go back to resorting to strikes and military offensives because the successive Turkish governments' attempts to bring a military solution to the Kurdish issue have yielded nothing but bloodshed, destruction and poverty," it said.

"The Kurdistan parliament urges the government of Turkey to take steps towards peace and exert maximum efforts to continue down a peaceful path without turning back," it said.

"At the same time, we urge the PKK to review its position and focus on continuing the peace process because living in peace is the best path to prosperity."
Source: AFP