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Turkey shelled Iraqi Kurdistan area
-ruling Kurdistan party 1.6.2006
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BAGHDAD, June 1,
- A ruling party official in Iraq's autonomous
Kurdistan region accused Turkish forces on Thursday
of shelling villages inside Kurdistan-Iraq and said
one shepherd was wounded in an incident on
Wednesday.
Turkish officials were not immediately available for
comment on the accusations by the official from the
Kurdistan Democratic Party in Kurdistan (northern
Iraq). A Turkish government official last month
dismissed a similar allegation as "total
fabrication."
"Yesterday morning at 11 a.m. Turkish forces shelled
the village of Zawita and some other Kurdish
villages," the official, Ali Auni, told Reuters by
phone, referring to an area near the border.
"This led to the wounding of a 50-year-old
shepherd," he added.
Ankara traditionally launches a spring offensive
against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas in
southeastern Turkey, an area which borders Iraq.
Iraqi security forces are trying to stop PKK
fighters based in mountainous and mainly Kurdish
northern Iraq from crossing over the border into
Turkey. Ankara has asked U.S. and Iraqi forces to
crack down on PKK units based inside Iraq.
Turkey has sent 40,000 troops to its own Kurdish
areas to reinforce the 220,000 already there, the
biggest build-up in years after an increase in PKK
attacks.
The PKK, seeking a Kurdish homeland including
southeastern Turkey, accuses Ankara and Tehran of
mounting coordinated operations against the group
and its Iranian wing, PJAK.
In early May, villagers in Iraq's Kurdistan accused
neighbouring Iran of hitting targets inside Iraq, a
charge Tehran denied.
Turkey and Iran are wary of the autonomy Iraqi Kurds
have consolidated since the 2003 Iraq war and fear
it might lead to more unrest among their own large
Kurdish population.
Reuters
Southeastern Turkey: North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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