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Iraqi Kurds ask Kurdish PKK to 'withdraw'

August 1, 2015

Kurdish officials in northern Iraq have called on PKK militants to leave the region, as the death toll mounts in Turkey's anti-PKK campaign. Meanwhile, Kurdish rebels fighting in Syria accuse Ankara of 'provocation.'

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Türkei Soldaten auf Patrouille in der Provinz Sirnak
Image: picture-alliance/epa

The President of Iraq's Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani urged members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Turkish government to return to peace talks, after the latest Turkish airstrikes killed at least six people in Iraq on Saturday morning.

Barzani also said that the PKK should "withdraw its fighters" from the Kurdish ruled-area in Iraq.

"The PKK must keep the battlefield away from the Kurdistan region in order for civilians not to become victims of this war," he said.

Barzani condemned the Turkish bombing of Zargala village in the Kurdistan region, which he said had left a number of civilians dead a day earlier.

The attacks on Kurdish rebel targets come as part of a two-pronged "anti-terror" offensive launched by Ankara last week that was said to be aimed at both "Islamic State" (IS) jihadists and PKK militants.

Turkey's official Anatolia news agency reported Saturday that some 260 PKK rebels had been killed, with 400 wounded since the raids began.

Rival Kurd groups

PKK units are mostly active in Turkey, although their presence has long been tolerated in the Kurdish-dominated areas across the Iraqi border.

Relations between PKK militants and regional Kurdish officials have been somewhat uneasy since the 1990s civil war between the rival Kurdish factions.

Turkey 'hostile' to Syrian Kurds

On Saturday, Kurdish People's Protection (YPG) units in Syria accused Turkey of repeatedly targeting YPG positions. The militants also pointed out that they had nothing to do with the escalation between PKK and Turkish security forces.

"Despite our official announcement that we are not part of what is happening...the Turkish military monitors and targets our units," the group said in a statement posted to their website.

"We consider recent movements of the Turkish military as provocative and hostile actions," the statement added.

Previously, Ankara officials stated that Syrian Kurdish forces remain outside the scope of their military efforts.

Calls for peace

Before the Turkish campaign began last week, Turkey and the PKK had been involved in a tentative peace process that had resulted in a ceasefire in 2013, but the uneasy truce has now been shattered. A dozen Turkish security forces have been killed in attacks blamed on the PKK in the last 10 days.

Turkey's allies, including Germany, have asked Ankara to return to peace negotiations in a bid to end the conflict.

dj/jlw (AP, Reuters, AFP, dpa)