Earlier on Saturday, Turkey conducted a series of airstrikes against the camps of PKK in northern Iraq. During these bombings nine civilians were killed and 15 were wounded.
“The PKK should withdraw from the region so that civilians in the Kurdish region will not be the victims of the clashes… The PKK should keep the battlefield out of the region. Continuation of the battle mostly harms civilians,” the statement of the Kurdish regional government in Iraq said on Saturday, as quoted by the Anadolu news agency.
Last week, Ankara initiated a two-front military operation against the PKK and the Islamic State (IS) militant group in response to the escalation of terrorist attacks in southern Turkey. According to the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish army will continue the military operations against the PKK and the IS until the armed groups lay down their arms.
The PKK is a Kurdish insurgent group established in the late 1970s to promote self-determination for the Kurds. Kurdish community inhabits vast territories of the Middle East, but it does not have the home state. Turkey considers the PKK as terrorist organization.
IS is a jihadist group that has occupied large areas in Iraq and Syria last year and is notorious for committing numerous human rights atrocities and killings.
