SDF commander Mazloum Abdi says he was in a convoy with US troops at Sulaymaniyah airport at the time of the attack.
The Iraqi government has called on Turkey to apologize for an attack on an airport in the country’s northern Kurdish region, denouncing what it called a “flagrant aggression” against its sovereignty in the area.
The demand on Saturday came as an official from Turkey’s defense ministry told Reuters news agency that no Turkish military action had taken place in that region in recent days.
The Iraqi presidency said the attack occurred on Friday near Sulaymaniyah airport in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. It blamed Turkey for the attack, saying Ankara had no legal justification to “continue intimidating civilians under the pretext that hostile forces are present on Iraqi territory”.
“In this regard, we call on the Turkish government to take its responsibility and issue an official apology,” the statement said.
Turkey, which has been fighting Kurdish armed groups in the east for decades, has carried out several military operations, including airstrikes in northern Iraq and northern Syria against Kurdish-led forces there.
Ankara regards the Kurdish-led forces as “terrorists” linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is backed by the United States, said in a statement Saturday that their chief, Mazloum Abdi, was at Sulaymaniyah airport at the time of the attack but “no harm was done created”.
Abdi condemned the attack on Saturday, telling the Kurdish North news agency that he was in a convoy with US-led coalition troops and members of the Iraqi-Kurdish counter-terrorism force at the time of the shelling.
Asked about the reason behind the attack, Abdi said “it is a clear message from the Turks that they are concerned about our international relations and they want to damage it”.
Abdi added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was looking for a “free victory” ahead of next month’s parliamentary and presidential elections.
A US official confirmed to Reuters that there was an attack on a convoy in the area and that it contained US military personnel, but said there were no casualties.
About 900 US troops remain in Syria, most of them in the Kurdish-ruled northeast, as part of a US-led coalition fighting remnants of the ISIS, or ISIL armed group.
An informed source close to the leadership of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the party that controls the Sulaymaniyah area, and two Kurdish security officials also confirmed to Reuters that Abdi and three US military personnel were near the airport.
Al Al Jazeera’s Ameer Fendi, citing sources at Sulaymaniyah airport, said the attack “damaged much of the facility’s outer fence but caused no casualties”.
He noted that the attack came days after Turkey closed its airspace to aircraft traveling to and from Sulaymaniyah over what it said had intensified activity there by PKK fighters, and said the shelling had heightened tensions between the main parties in the Iraqi Kurdish government.
A statement from the Iraqi-Kurdish regional government, which is mainly controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, appeared to blame the PUK for Friday’s events. It accused them of instigating an attack on the airport and using “government institutions” for “illegal activities”.
Ankara has close ties to the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the largest party in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and dominant in the regional capital Erbil.
Its rival, the PUK, has closer ties to the PKK and is dominant in Sulaymaniya.
Fendi, reporting from Erbil, said that “the presidency of the Iraqi-Kurdish region has called on the two sides to stop exchanging accusations and to investigate the circumstances of these recent shellings”.
“This tense atmosphere between the two sides of the Kurdish regional government comes at a time when the airspace in Turkiye remains closed to flights from Sulaymaniyah Airport, and at a time when many say the differences between both governing parties must come to an end. end…while people here prepare for parliamentary elections scheduled for later this year,” he added.
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