Turkish Drone Kills PKK Official in Iraq: Kurdish Security

A Turkish drone strike killed a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) military official in northern Iraq on Sunday, officials in the autonomous Kurdistan region said.

The “Turkish army drone” targeted a car with PKK fighters in the district of Chamchamal, near Iraqi Kurdistan’s second city Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism services said.

“A PKK military official was killed, and another fighter was wounded,” it added in a statement.

Since 1984, the PKK has waged an insurgency in Turkey that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, and Ankara has long maintained dozens of military bases inside northern Iraq where it regularly launches operations against its fighters.

The Turkish army rarely comments on its strikes against PKK bases in the mountains of northern Iraq.

Ankara and its Western allies classify the PKK as a “terrorist” organization.

At the end of July, four PKK fighters were killed in the same region in a drone strike also attributed to Turkey by Iraqi Kurdistan.

Both the Iraqi federal authorities and the Kurdistan regional government have been accused of tolerating Turkey’s military activities to preserve their close economic ties.

However, officials have repeatedly condemned Turkish operations in Iraq, describing them as a violation of the country’s sovereignty and the rights of its civilians.

On July 25, the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani referred to an “upcoming visit” by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but it has yet to provide further details.