According to state media outlets, Turkey launched two separate operations in Duhok province targeting the suspects. The outlets did not identify the alleged planners.
The first operation was reportedly conducted in Duhok city on July 18, one day after the Erbil attack took place, while the second took place six days later on Wednesday in the Batifa area of Zakho, TRT reported Thursday.
Graphic: Maps4news, Ahmed Barham / Rudaw
The pro-government Daily Sabah said two people were “neutralized” in these operations, claiming they were senior members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkey and pro-government media use the term “neutralized” to denote captured, wounded, or killed.
The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) carried out the twin operations based on information from “local intelligence sources”, TRT said, without providing details.
The outlet also published photos of two destroyed vehicles – a Toyota Hilux and a Jeep – which allegedly belonged to the planners.
On Wednesday, senior PKK commander Bahoz Erdal denied the armed group was involved in the “amateur” Erbil attack, but praised the perpetrators for killing a “blood sucker”.
Erdal claimed that Osman Kose, the Turkish diplomat killed in the attack, was a top official in Turkey’s military intelligence agency MIT running operations against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region.
“We did some investigations and concluded that first of all the killed person is not a diplomat but the head of MIT in charge of activities against us in all southern Kurdistan [Iraqi Kurdistan Region],” Erdal told the PKK-affiliated Sterk TV.
The July 17 shooting took place at a Turkish restaurant in the upmarket Empire complex in Erbil. Kose and two Kurdish civilians died when three gunmen opened fire with pistols fitted with suppressors.
Kurdish security forces (Asayesh) have announced the arrest of two suspects.
The attack was condemned by Kurdistan Region officials, foreign diplomatic missions, and by Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which called on the media and political opponents not to defame its MP Dersim Dag – the sister of one of the suspects, Mazlum Dag.
204 PKK ‘neutralized’
A senior official from the Turkish Defense Ministry claimed on Thursday the armed forces have “neutralized” 204 PKK fighters since the launch of the first phase of Operation Claw on May 27 along Turkey’s border with the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.
Turkish forces have attacked suspected PKK positions in Zap, Avasin, Basyan, Sinat, Haftanin, Gara, Metina, and the Qandil Mountains, Colonel Tamer Zincir said in a statement.
The Turkish Defense Ministry meanwhile said in multiple tweets on Thursday its armed forces had neutralized seven PKK suspects in separate operations.
The PKK and the Turkish state have been locked in a decades-long conflict, resulting in the death of more than 40,000 people, including Turkish security forces, PKK fighters, and civilians.
Both parties reached a ceasefire agreement in 2013 which lasted just two and a half years. Since its collapse on July 20, 2015, an estimated 4,472 people have been killed, according to International Crisis Group (ICG) figures, last updated July 2.
