US concerned over Turkish airstrike in Makhmour camp

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An official from the US State Department  on Sunday raised concerns over the “targeting of civilians” after a Turkish airstrike killed three people near a refugee camp near Makhmour in Erbil province.

“Of course, we are opposed to the targeting of civilians and the targeting of refugees, of course, in any situation,” said Jeffrey Prescott, Deputy to the US Ambassador to the United Nations. “That would be a gross violation of international humanitarian law, and we will speak out against that at every opportunity.”

Prescott spoke during a special telephone briefing on Sunday, answering questions from reporters about US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s visit to Turkey last week.

“In terms of the events of the last 24 to 48 hours, we’re still trying to understand exactly what has happened, and I think we’ll have more to say once we understand more about the situation,” Prescott stated.

He also spoke on US President Joe Biden’s upcoming meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which is expected to take place on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels in mid-June.

“Obviously, the President is going to be traveling to Europe for a series of meetings with our closest European allies, our NATO allies, including President Erdogan, and we’ll have an opportunity to align on a full variety of issues that we are facing and that we’re collectively facing, and obviously we’ll have more to say about that in the days to come,” Prescott stated.

He said he was unsure if Thomas-Greenfield was in Turkey when the airstrike occurred.

Thomas-Greenfield spoke out against the strike in a Twitter statement on Saturday, saying, “Yesterday, I made clear to Turkish officials that any attack targeting civilians at Makhmour refugee camp would be a violation of international and humanitarian law. I’m deeply concerned about violence near the camp today and call on all sides to respect the rights of refugees.”

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Friday that Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with Thomas-Greenfield and discussed “the importance of extending the UN Security Council Resolution on cross-border humanitarian mechanism for Syria.”

Makhmour camp hosts more than 12,000 Kurdish refugees who fled persecution by the Turkish state, mainly in the 1990s. It is located in areas disputed between Erbil and Baghdad.

Ankara believes the camp has close ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed Kurdish group that is on Turkey’s terror list. The PKK, which fights for greater rights for Kurds in Turkey, has its headquarters in the Kurdistan Region’s Qandil Mountains.