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Turkish cross-border artillery shelling
Iraqi Kurdistan
6.8.2007
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August 6, 2007
Duhok, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- Turkish
forces shelled cross-border regions in Iraq's
Kurdistan's province of Duhok, head of the border
guard forces in Duhok, Col. Hussein Tamr, said on
Sunday.
"Turkish artillery fired at several cross-border
regions in Zakho on Saturday midnight," Col. Tamr
said.
"About 200-250 shells were fired, but no casualties
were reported," he indicated.
Meanwhile, other 200 Turkish shells were fired at
cross-border regions between Zakho and al-Amadiyah
district. The shelling lasted for an hour," a source
from the border police department said.
The shelling targeted the villages of Bandour,
Sharansh, Winsdour, Kashani, Kista, Bitkar, Nirawa
and Rikani, according to the source who requested
his name not be mentioned.
The source denied news about Turkish invasion of
Iraqi territories.
An eyewitness said that the shelling caused
considerable damage to vast areas of agricultural
land. Another local resident from Rowis village said
that the shelling burnt more than 300 of his fruit
trees.
The official website of the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) claimed that Turkish Armed Forces
has entered Kurdistan (Northern Iraq); however, it
was remarkable that there were no military movements
in the region. There are no planes or helicopter
flights in Diyarbakir, air base of the region.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul denied that a
cross-border operation had taken place. "There is no
such thing, no entry to another country," Gul said.
"If such a thing happens we would announce it."
Duhok is the third province within Iraq's Kurdistan
region. It is in the far north of Iraq and has
borders with Turkey.
Turkish forces have recurrently bombed Iraq's
Kurdistan areas across the border to pursue members
of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an
organization Ankara views as terrorist.
PKK took up arms for self-rule in the country's
mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
Kurdish politician says, Turkey is using a Kurdish
separatist PKK rebel group as an excuse to invade
Kurdistan region (Iraq) to prevent the establishment
of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish autonomous region
in (northern Iraq).
Ankara is anxious to prevent the emergence of a
Kurdish state in Kurdistan region (northern Iraq),
fearing this could fan separatism among its own
large Kurdish population in southeast Turkey. Kurds
constitute about 20 percent of Turkey's more than 70
million people.
VOI | Agencies
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