Baghdad summons Turkish ambassador after cross-border strike on Kurdish rebels kills 2 Iraqi commanders

A Turkish drone strike that killed two senior Iraqi commanders has triggered a harsh response in Baghdad, with the federal government scrapping a high-level protection assembly and summoning Ankara’s ambassador to rebuke the assault.

The Iraqi International Ministry known as on the Turkish ambassador on Tuesday to “inform him of Iraq’s confirmed rejection of his nation’s assaults and violations” and voice “a robust protest” over the drone strike, which killed a basic and a brigadier within the nation’s Border Guards in Iraqi Kurdistan, together with the motive force of their car. A go to by Turkish Protection Minister Hulusi Akar was additionally cancelled following the assault, which was confirmed by the Iraqi navy.

“A Turkish assault utilizing a drone focused a navy car of the Border Guards within the Sidekan space and induced the dying of the commander of the Second Brigade, the commander of the Third Regiment… and the motive force on the wheel,” Iraq’s safety media cell stated in a tweet.

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The 2 commanders had been assembly with members of the Kurdistan Employees’ Get together (PKK) on the time of the assault, two Iraqi safety sources instructed the Related Press, whereas the mayor of Sidekan, a city north of Erbil, famous they’d been establishing new outposts within the Kurdish-majority area.

Although Ankara has but to publicly handle the high-ranking casualties within the strike, the nation’s protection ministry reported that it had “neutralized” two PKK fighters in an “air operation” over northern Iraq on Tuesday night time. Turkey considers the PKK a terrorist group and has clashed with the group intermittently for the reason that 1970s, launching frequent strikes each in its personal southeastern area and northern Iraq, the place the group is predicated.

The Iraqi International Ministry has summoned the Turkish ambassador on not less than two different events this yr over related air raids on PKK targets within the northern border area, repeatedly slamming the operations as violations of Iraqi sovereignty. Turkey, for its half, maintains that each Baghdad and regional Kurdish officers should not doing sufficient to stem PKK assaults launched from the Iraqi facet of the border, boasting of a whole bunch of air strikes on the group in latest months.

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