“While the people of the Kurdistan Region flocked to the countryside and mountains of Kurdistan and were busy doing celebrations and parties to spend the Newroz feast and the beginning of a new Kurdish year, unfortunately, in the early hours of Thursday, four youth from the Kurdistan Region were martyred as a result of Turkey bombing PKK positions in Balakayati area,” stated Safeen Dizayee, KRG spokesperson.
Extending condolences to the families of the four young men killed early Thursday morning, Dizayee said the government was concerned about targeting of populated areas, noting “many times civilians have been victims.”
He called on the PKK to leave the populated areas in order to protect civilians.
Dizayee did not, however, directly condemn Turkey.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the dominant party within the KRG and a close ally of Turkey, has not immediately commented on the deaths, but its partner in government Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) had harsh words for Turkey.
The Turkish state must stop its "aerial terror against the civilian population," the PUK declared in a statement.
The four young men killed when they stayed overnight in the mountains after a Newroz picnic, Shera Mahmud, Kaka Mustafa Warti, Mohammed Ismael Warti, and Darbaz Mohammed, were members of the PUK, the party stated, denying that there were any armed activities in the area that was targeted by the Turkish military.
The parliamentary bloc of the PUK called on the Iraqi government to condemn the Turkish airstrikes and for Ankara to provide compensation for the human and material losses caused by the airstrikes.
Relations between the PUK and Turkey are strained stage after the PKK arrested two Turkish intelligence agents in the PUK stronghold of Sulaimani last August. Ankara responded by expelling the PUK's representative to Turkey.
Earlier on Thursday, Turkey expressed concern about "direct coordination" between the PUK and the PKK in Sulaimani.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, citing a security source, reported that nine “PKK terrorists” were “neutralized” in the Hakurk region – meaning killed or injured. The source alleged the PKK members targeted had been plotting to attack Turkey military bases and had been spotted by drones within Turkey’s southeastern Hakkari province.
Since March 10, Turkish Armed Forces claim to have “neutralized” 50 “terrorists” in the Kurdistan Region and northern Iraq, Anadolu reported.
Gorran, an opposition party, also had strong words for Turkey, as well as Erbil and Baghdad, saying that Kurdistan’s northern neighbor “barbarically assaulted civilians” in its deadly strikes carried out “once again in front of the international community, human rights organizations, the Iraqi government, and the Kurdistan Region.”
“As the Change Movement [Gorran] from the Kurdistan Parliament, we are strongly condemning this massacre and slamming it,” the party said in a statement. “We are calling on the UN, Security Council, and the EU countries to help stop this human killing campaign being committed by Turkey against our nation, the nation of Kurdistan.”
“The Baghdad government must immediately execute its constitutional responsibilities at the international level about the aerial transgresses by Turkey,” it concluded.
The PKK, a named terrorist organization, has been engaged in a four-decade armed struggle against Ankara, fighting for greater national and cultural rights for millions of Kurds living in the country.
The PKK controls some areas on the border between the Kurdistan Region and Turkey including Qandil Mountain where its main headquarters are. Turkey frequently carries out strikes against alleged PKK positions in the Kurdistan mountains.
