ANKARA (Dispatches) –
Turkey’s foreign minister has denied that Ankara carried out a deadly attack on a resort in Iraq’s Duhok province that killed at least eight people and wounded dozens.
Two children, three men, and three women were among those dead after a raid took place at the Barkh resort in the Zakho district in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
The Iraqi government blamed Turkey for the attack, which Ankara has denied saying instead that Kurdish militants were responsible.
“The whole world knows that Turkey has never carried out a counter-attack against civilians,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told state broadcaster TRT Haber on Thursday.
“In Iraq, [our target] has always been directed against terrorist organizations,” he said, referring to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants.
Turkey has been waging an offensive against PKK militants and their allies in the mountains of northern Iraq since April.
Cavusoglu said that Ankara would cooperate with Iraqi authorities on the “treacherous attack”, which he blamed on “terrorist organizations”.
“It is also significant that such an event took place at a time when our relations with Iraq were improving and our fight against terrorism was successful,” he said.
Cavusoglu’s comments add to a statement made a day earlier by the Turkish foreign ministry sending condolences to the victims and inviting Iraqi authorities to “cooperate to reveal the real perpetrators of this disastrous incident”.
The Zakho district is a popular destination for domestic Iraqi tourists, with many still in the area following Eid festivities two weeks ago.
On Wednesday night, there were mass protests across towns and cities in Iraq. Footage shared online showed demonstrators burning Turkish flags and holding up slogans denouncing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A Turkish flag was taken down at a cultural center in the capital Baghdad, amid mass protests outside.
Earlier on Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi accused Turkey of carrying out the attack, calling it a “blatant and flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty and the lives of the Iraqi people”.
“This brutal attack underscores the fact that Turkey ignored Iraq’s continuous demands to refrain from military violations against Iraqi territory and the lives of its people,” he said in a statement.
Baghdad declared a day of national mourning on Thursday for the victims of the attack.
Al-Kadhimi ordered the formation of an investigative committee, headed by Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and made up of several high-ranking security officials, in order to thoroughly look into the circumstances surrounding the incident.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry stressed that a diplomatic response at the highest level will be adopted in connection with the deadly artillery attack, and the case will be referred to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
Hadi al-Ameri, the head of the Fatah (Conquest) Alliance in Iraq’s Parliament, strongly condemned the attack, demanding the immediate closure of Iraq’s borders with Turkey.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for an urgent investigation into the artillery shelling of Dohuk.