ANKARA: Turkish warplanes carried out new airstrikes Wednesday against Kurdish militant targets in neighboring Iraq, the Turkish defense ministry said, a day after Turkish and Iraqi officials held high-level security talks in Ankara.
Turkiye often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq that it believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkiye since the 1980s.
According to a statement from the ministry, the fighter jets struck a total of 14 suspected PKK targets in northern Iraq’s Gara, Hakourk and Qandil regions where the aircraft destroyed caves, shelters and warehouses used by the militants. Measures were taken to avoid harming civilians, historic or cultural heritage and the environment, the ministry added.
There was no immediate comment from the PKK, the government in Baghdad or the administration in the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region in Iraq.
Ankara maintains that PKK has sanctuaries in northern Iraq, where its leadership is also purportedly based.
On Tuesday, top military and security officials led by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein met in Ankara to discuss security issues, including the threat from PKK, according to a communique released at the end of the meeting.
PKK is considered a terror organization by the United States and the European Union. Tens of thousands of people have died since the start of the conflict in 1984.
Turkiye says its warplanes have hit suspected Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq
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Turkiye says its warplanes have hit suspected Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq
- The fighter jets struck a total of 14 suspected PKK targets in northern Iraq’s Gara, Hakourk and Qandil regions
- Ankara maintains that PKK has sanctuaries in northern Iraq
Iran’s foreign minister heads to Muscat for nuclear talks with US
- Iran will engage in the talks “with authority and with the aim of reaching a fair, mutually acceptable and dignified understanding on the nuclear issue,” a spokesperson said
TEHRAN: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has departed for the Omani capital Muscat at the head of a diplomatic delegation for nuclear talks with the US due to be held on Friday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson said.
The US and Iran have agreed to hold talks in Oman on Friday, officials for both sides said, even as they remain at odds over Washington’s insistence that negotiations must include Tehran’s missile arsenal and Iran’s vow to discuss only its nuclear program.
Iran will engage in the talks “with authority and with the aim of reaching a fair, mutually acceptable and dignified understanding on the nuclear issue,” the spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Thursday.
“We hope the American side will also participate in this process with responsibility, realism and seriousness,” Baghaei added.
