Hours after Ankara attack, Turkiye pounds militant targets in Iraq

ISTANBUL, October 2

Turkiye said it unleashed air strikes on militant targets in northern Iraq and detained suspects in Istanbul overnight, hours after Kurdish militants said they orchestrated the first bomb attack in the capital Ankara in years.

On Sunday morning, two attackers detonated a bomb near government buildings in Ankara, killing them both and wounding two police officers. The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group claimed responsibility.

The defence ministry said many militants were killed in air strikes that destroyed 20 targets — caves, shelters and depots —used by the PKK in Iraq’s Metina, Hakurk, Qandil and Gara regions.

Turkiye has stepped up military action against the PKK in northern Iraq over the last few years in operations it says are conducted under self-defence rights arising from Article 51 of the United Nations charter.

Iraqi President Abdul-Latif Rashid said in comments aired on Monday that Iraq rejected repeated Turkish air strikes or the presence of Turkish bases in its Kurdistan region and hoped to come to an agreement with Ankara to solve the problem.

The Kurdistan Workers Party is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkiye, the United States and European Union. It launched an insurgency in southeast Turkiye in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. — Reuters

No air strikes, says Baghdad

Baghdad: Iraqi President Abdul-Latif Rashid on Monday said there had been no air strikes while also rejecting the presence of Turkish bases in its Kurdistan region. “We hope to come to an agreement with Ankara to solve the problem,” he said. reuters