Türkiye’s foreign minister said on Thursday that the country did not carry out any attack against civilians in northern Iraq’s Duhok province.
Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a live interview with national broadcaster TRT Haber, “According to information we received from the Turkish Armed Forces, we did not carry out any attack on civilians.”
The remarks came a day after an attack in Duhok’s Zakho district killed eight people.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry called on Iraqi government officials not to make statements on the Duhok attack “under the influence of rhetoric and propaganda” of the PKK terrorist organization, in a statement released after Wednesday’s attack.
Reports which claimed the civilians lost their lives due to shelling by Turkish forces were also denied by Turkish security sources.
Türkiye would “cooperate with the Iraqi authorities after the treacherous attack that we believe was carried out by terrorist groups,” Cavusoglu pledged.
Türkiye rejects both official and unofficial statements seeking to link it to the attack, he added.
Urging Iraqi authorities must not fall into the trap of terrorist groups, Cavusoglu said the PKK’s propaganda in Iraq comes at a time when Türkiye is set to launch a new operation against the terror group’s offshoot the YPG/PKK in northern Syria, across the Turkish border.
