Iraqi officials accused Turkey on Wednesday of shelling a popular tourist destination in the Iraq’s north, killing at least nine and injuring 22.
Four or five shells were reported to have hit among the thousands of crowded civilians at the Barakh resort area of Zakhu, a popular tourist destination recently, as its pools and shade offer refuge to locals fleeing the blistering summer heat.
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“People are terrified. They came for tourism, but they were bombed instead,” Dulsher Abdulsattar, a Zakhu official, told the Washington Post. “Are there PKK in the mountains? Of course. But here they bombed a tourist area.” He added that the region had been shelled by Turkish forces seven times in recent months but never gatherings of civilians.
The Turkish military has dozens of military bases in Iraq’s north from which it conducts attacks against the Kurdish Worker’s Party, or PKK, an organization designated a terrorist group by Turkey and the United States. Turkey has repeatedly demanded that Iraqi officials do more to oust the group from the northern Kurdish regions.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al Kadhimi held an emergency meeting of Iraq’s Ministerial Council for National Security in order to address the attack.
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“The Council condemned in the strongest terms the brutal Turkish attack that targeted innocent citizens in a tourist resort in Dohuk … and caused a number of martyrs and wounded, which confirms the Turkish side’s disregard for the continuing Iraqi demands to stop violations against Iraq’s sovereignty and the security of its citizens, and to respect the principle of good neighborliness,” Kadhimi wrote on Twitter. He directed the council to compile a list of Turkish violations of Iraqi sovereignty to take to the United Nations.
رئيس مجلس الوزراء، القائد العام للقوات المسلحة @MAKadhimi يترأس اجتماعاً طارئاً للمجلس الوزاري للأمن الوطني.وأدان المجلس في مستهل الاجتماع بأشد العبارات الاعتداء التركي الغاشم الذي استهدف المواطنين الأبرياء في أحد المنتجعات السياحية بمحافظة دهوك… pic.twitter.com/Yudxy0racQ
— المكتب الإعلامي لرئيس الوزراء 🇮🇶 (@IraqiPMO) July 20, 2022
Turkey denies carrying out the attack.
“We are investigating the reports, but the initial inquiry says we do not confirm the allegations,” an official with the Turkish Defense Ministry told the Wall Street Journal.
