ERBIL,
Iraq — Eight civilians including two children were
killed and 23 wounded in northern
Iraq’s Kurdistan region on Wednesday, when
artillery shells hit a park in an attack local officials blamed on Turkey.
اضافة اعلان
Mushir Bashir, the head of Zakho region, said the
victims were mainly “Arab Iraqi tourists, mostly from central and southern
Iraq”, and blamed forces from across the border.
“Turkey hit the village twice today,” Bashir told
AFP.
Bashir, speaking to a local broadcaster, said that
“Turkish artillery fire on the tourist region of Parakh killed eight people and
injured 23”.
A Kurdish government official had initially reported
at least five dead from Turkish fire.
The victims were tourists who had come to the hill
village of Parakh in Zakho district to escape sweltering temperatures further
south in the country, Bashir added.
As well as two children, the dead included three men
and three women, Zakho health official Amir Ali told reporters.
A source in Turkey’s defense ministry said that he
had “no information reporting or confirming artillery fire in this area”.
Turkey launched a new offensive in northern Iraq in
April dubbed “Operation Claw-Lock”, which it said targets fighters from the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Designated as a terrorist group by Ankara and its
Western allies, the PKK has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state
since 1984 that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, has
complicated relations with the PKK as its presence in the region hampers vital
trade relations with neighboring Turkey.
The military operations have seen Turkey’s ambassador in
Baghdad regularly summoned to the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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