Hundreds protest in Baghdad after deadly attack on tourist resort
"MARRIED FOR JUST FIVE DAYS"
One victim of the attack was 24-year-old Baghdad resident Abbas Alaa, who was studying to become a civil engineer..
"He was married for five days. He went for his honeymoon," Alaa's cousin Mohammed Kadhim told Reuters, as he joined relatives for the funeral. Alaa's wife suffered minor injuries, he said.
Others caught up in the violence were enjoying a break in the mountains from the oppressive summer heat.
"The children were playing in the water. ... After half an hour, they hit us. And after a minute. We did not know where to go any more," said Kifah Ali Najem, who said he lost his sister and niece.
"Our family scattered, the women were dispersed, the men were dispersed," he said. "We are upset, we want our bodies."
Turkey regularly carries out air strikes in northern Iraq and has sent commandos to support its offensives as part of a long-running campaign against militants of the Kurdish PKK, which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which in the past was mainly focused in southeast Turkey, where the PKK sought to create an ethnic homeland.
"The whole world knows we would never carry out an attack on civilians," Turkey's Cavusoglu said.
(Reporting by Amina Ismail in Erbil, Kawa Omar in Dohuk, Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, Thaier Al-Sudani, Haider Kadhim, Seba Kareem and Charlotte Bruneau in Baghdad; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by William Maclean and Leslie Adler)
Funeral ceremony of a victim who was killed in an attack on a mountain resort, in Baghdad
Thu, July 21, 2022
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Hundreds of people protested in Baghdad on Thursday after an attack in northern Iraq killed nine people including a newly wed husband and a 1-year-old, a strike that Iraq blamed on Turkish forces but which Ankara denied carrying out.
The incident took place on Wednesday at a summer resort near the northern Iraqi town of Zakho close to the border with Turkey, in a region where Turkish forces have waged a campaign against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants.
Iraq accused Turkey of responsibility for the deaths, but has not provided evidence. Ankara said it had not carried out any attacks aimed at civilians in the area and said it was ready to hold talks with Iraq to uncover the facts.
“All signals indicate that Turkey is responsible for the assault and its denial is a 'dark joke,'” the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“There is a possibility that Iraq will resort to the economic card,” the ministry said, without further explanation.
In Baghdad, around 500 people gathered near a building belonging to the Turkish Embassy and scuffles briefly broke out between police and protesters.
"We demand a real reaction from the Iraqi government," protester Haider al-Tamimi said, accusing politicians in federal Iraq and the autonomous Kurdish-led region where the attack took place of a weak response to the bloodshed.
Iraq has summoned Ankara's ambassador to Baghdad over the attack and its state agency said the government will recall its charge d'affaires in Ankara.
The bodies of the victims were flown to Baghdad on Thursday, with ceremonies marking their transfer to the capital attended by senior Iraqi government officials including Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
Kadhimi's office described the victims as "martyrs from the brutal Turkish attack which targeted civilians".
Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said on Thursday that Turkish military operations in Iraq have always been against the PKK, which is designated a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union. He said the attack was carried out by what he called terrorists.
Thu, July 21, 2022
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Hundreds of people protested in Baghdad on Thursday after an attack in northern Iraq killed nine people including a newly wed husband and a 1-year-old, a strike that Iraq blamed on Turkish forces but which Ankara denied carrying out.
The incident took place on Wednesday at a summer resort near the northern Iraqi town of Zakho close to the border with Turkey, in a region where Turkish forces have waged a campaign against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants.
Iraq accused Turkey of responsibility for the deaths, but has not provided evidence. Ankara said it had not carried out any attacks aimed at civilians in the area and said it was ready to hold talks with Iraq to uncover the facts.
“All signals indicate that Turkey is responsible for the assault and its denial is a 'dark joke,'” the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“There is a possibility that Iraq will resort to the economic card,” the ministry said, without further explanation.
In Baghdad, around 500 people gathered near a building belonging to the Turkish Embassy and scuffles briefly broke out between police and protesters.
"We demand a real reaction from the Iraqi government," protester Haider al-Tamimi said, accusing politicians in federal Iraq and the autonomous Kurdish-led region where the attack took place of a weak response to the bloodshed.
Iraq has summoned Ankara's ambassador to Baghdad over the attack and its state agency said the government will recall its charge d'affaires in Ankara.
The bodies of the victims were flown to Baghdad on Thursday, with ceremonies marking their transfer to the capital attended by senior Iraqi government officials including Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
Kadhimi's office described the victims as "martyrs from the brutal Turkish attack which targeted civilians".
Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said on Thursday that Turkish military operations in Iraq have always been against the PKK, which is designated a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union. He said the attack was carried out by what he called terrorists.
"MARRIED FOR JUST FIVE DAYS"
One victim of the attack was 24-year-old Baghdad resident Abbas Alaa, who was studying to become a civil engineer..
"He was married for five days. He went for his honeymoon," Alaa's cousin Mohammed Kadhim told Reuters, as he joined relatives for the funeral. Alaa's wife suffered minor injuries, he said.
Others caught up in the violence were enjoying a break in the mountains from the oppressive summer heat.
"The children were playing in the water. ... After half an hour, they hit us. And after a minute. We did not know where to go any more," said Kifah Ali Najem, who said he lost his sister and niece.
"Our family scattered, the women were dispersed, the men were dispersed," he said. "We are upset, we want our bodies."
Turkey regularly carries out air strikes in northern Iraq and has sent commandos to support its offensives as part of a long-running campaign against militants of the Kurdish PKK, which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which in the past was mainly focused in southeast Turkey, where the PKK sought to create an ethnic homeland.
"The whole world knows we would never carry out an attack on civilians," Turkey's Cavusoglu said.
(Reporting by Amina Ismail in Erbil, Kawa Omar in Dohuk, Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, Thaier Al-Sudani, Haider Kadhim, Seba Kareem and Charlotte Bruneau in Baghdad; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by William Maclean and Leslie Adler)
Iraqi foreign minister visits site
of Dohuk attack
STORY: Iraq's government said it will call back the Iraqi charge d'affaires in Turkey for consultation after accusing Ankara of carrying out the strike in Zakho, a city on the border between Iraq's Kurdistan region and Turkey, state news agency INA reported.
Turkey has refuted these claims saying the attack was a terror act.
Speaking at the scene of the attack, Fuad Hussein said all Iraqi representatives held a "unified position regarding this tragedy".
"We have big problems in Iraq, political problems. But there is a unified position among all the representatives of the Iraqi people," he said.
"Until now, the information we've received is that there was a bombing of this safe touristic site, artillery. And this calm, beautiful touristic village was hit."
VIDEO: Iraqi foreign minister visits site of Dohuk attack (yahoo.com)
ALI ABD AL-HASAN and SAMYA KULLAB
Thu, July 21, 2022
BAGHDAD (AP) — Hundreds of ngry Iraqis took to the streets late Thursday to decry deadly strikes on an Iraqi tourist resort the previous day that the government has blamed on Turkey. The protests erupted just hours after the families of those killed in the shelling buried their loved ones.
Turkey's foreign minister rejected accusations that his country's military carried out Wednesday's attack on the district of Zakho in Iraq's semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region. At least eight Iraqis were killed, including a child, and 20 were wounded.
Turkey frequently carries out airstrikes and attacks into northern Iraq and has sent commandos to support its offensives targeting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. The insurgents, who have for decades battled the government in Ankara, have bases in the mountainous Iraqi region. And though civilians, mostly local villagers, have been killed in the past, Wednesday’s attack marked the first time that tourists visiting the north from elsewhere in Iraq were killed.
Thu, July 21, 2022
BAGHDAD (AP) — Hundreds of ngry Iraqis took to the streets late Thursday to decry deadly strikes on an Iraqi tourist resort the previous day that the government has blamed on Turkey. The protests erupted just hours after the families of those killed in the shelling buried their loved ones.
Turkey's foreign minister rejected accusations that his country's military carried out Wednesday's attack on the district of Zakho in Iraq's semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region. At least eight Iraqis were killed, including a child, and 20 were wounded.
Turkey frequently carries out airstrikes and attacks into northern Iraq and has sent commandos to support its offensives targeting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. The insurgents, who have for decades battled the government in Ankara, have bases in the mountainous Iraqi region. And though civilians, mostly local villagers, have been killed in the past, Wednesday’s attack marked the first time that tourists visiting the north from elsewhere in Iraq were killed.
Speaking with Turkish state broadcaster TRT, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey was willing to cooperate with Iraqi authorities to shed light on the “treacherous attack.” He offered to bring the wounded to Turkey for medical treatment.
The protests outside what was formerly the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad’s neighborhood of Waziriah started peacefully but later escalated. Some in the crowd carried signs that read: “Turkey’s attacks on civilians is a crime against humanity.”
Others threw stones at the riot police and burned tires. At one point, clashes erupted when some demonstrators tried to storm in to replace the Turkish flag that was still flying over the building with an Iraqi one.
Several protesters were hurt when the police threw back some of the stones hurled at them. The Turkish Embassy, which had relocated to the heavily fortified Green Zone last year, cancelled visa appointments for the day.
Earlier Thursday, Iraq's government summoned Turkey's ambassador in protest and caskets carrying the bodies of victims were flown from the semi-autonomous Kurdish-run northern region to Baghdad for burial.
Before the flight, the Iraqi Kurdish region’s president, Nechirvan Barzani, laid a wreath on one of the caskets and helped carry it onto a military plane.
At the Baghdad airport, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi received the dead and met with the families of those killed, offering his condolences. He promised the wounded would be taken care of.
There remained a discrepancy over how many were killed in Wednesday's attack. Iraq's military said eight people died but nine caskets were loaded onto the military plane Thursday.
Cavusoglu, Turkey's top diplomat, claimed the attack was a “smokescreen" aimed “at preventing Turkish military operations in the region."
“We did not conduct any attack against civilians,” he said and insisted that Turkey's “fight in Iraq has always been against" the PKK.
Meanwhile, mourners carried the coffin of Abbas Abdul Hussein, a 30-year-old Iraqi killed in Zakho. Hussein had just gotten married five days earlier, his cousin Said Alawadi said, demanding the government “initiate deterrent measures against Turkey," even cut all political and economic ties.
The attack catapulted into the spotlight Turkey's ongoing military operations against Turkey's Kurdish insurgents in northern Iraq — an issue that has long divided Iraqi officials. With deep economic ties between the two countries, many hesitate to damage relations with Ankara.
Baghdad and Ankara are also divided on other issues, including the Kurdish region's independent oil sector and water-sharing. But in the aftermath of the attack, anger against Turkey is mounting on the Iraqi street.
In April, Turkey launched its latest offensive in northern Iraq, part of a series of cross-border operations that started in 2019 to combat the PKK.
The Iraqi government condemned Wednesday's attack as a “flagrant violation of Iraq's sovereignty,” convened an emergency national security meeting and ordered a pause in dispatching Iraq's new ambassador to Ankara.
Iraq's Parliament was also to convene on Saturday to discuss the Turkish attack. Al-Kadhimi accused Turkey of ignoring “Iraq’s continuous demands to refrain from military violations against Iraqi territory and the lives of its people.”
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has led an insurgency in southeastern Turkey since 1984 that has killed tens of thousands of people.
Ankara has pressed Baghdad to root out the PKK from the Kurdish region. Iraq, in turn, has said Turkey’s ongoing attacks are a breach of its sovereignty.
___
Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.
The coffin carrying Abbas Abdul Hussein, a 30-year-old victim of an artillery strike, is carried to his family home in Baghdad, to later lay him to rest in Najaf city, Thursday, July 21, 2022, in Baghdad, Iraq. Hussein was on his honeymoon, five days after his wedding, when at least four artillery shells struck the resort area of Barakh in the Zakho district in the Iraqi semi-autonomous Kurdish-run region, killing nine people. (AP Photo/Ali Jabar)
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