ERBIL, Iraq, April 8 (Portal) – The Iraqi government on Saturday urged Turkey to apologize for an alleged attack on Sulaymaniyah Airport in northern Iraq and said Ankara must cease hostilities on Iraqi soil.
The Iraqi Presidency said in a statement that Turkey had no legal justification to “intimidate civilians under the pretext that it had hostile forces on Iraqi soil.”
“In this context, we call on the Turkish government to take responsibility and issue an official apology,” it said.
Lawk Ghafuri, head of foreign media affairs at the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), said a drone strike hit near Sulaymaniyah Airport on Friday but caused no damage, delays or flight suspensions.
An official at Turkey’s Defense Ministry told Portal that there had been no operation by Turkish forces in the region on Friday.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said in a statement on Saturday that its chief, Mazloum Abdi, was at the airport at the time of the alleged attack but “no damage was done”.
Abdi condemned Saturday’s attack but did not mention that he was attacked.
An informed source close to the leadership of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the party that controls Sulaimaniyah territory, and two Kurdish security officials also confirmed that Abdi and three US military personnel were near the airport.
The three sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said no one was injured or killed in the incident.
A US official confirmed a convoy was attacked in the area and US military personnel were in it, but there were no casualties.
While Turkey views the Kurdish-led forces in Syria as terrorists and a threat to national security, the United States views the SDF as an ally that helped drive Islamic State out of much of Syria.
Turkey has conducted several military operations in northern Iraq and northern Syria over the decades, including airstrikes against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, the Islamic State and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Claims of an attack came days after Turkey closed its airspace to planes flying to and from Sulaymaniyah amid alleged increased activity by PKK militants there.
The banned PKK, which has led an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
Reporting by Amina Ismail; Additional reporting by Hatem Maher and Enas Alashray in Cairo, Ali Sultan in Sulaymaniyah, Huseyin Hayatsever in Ankara, Idrees Ali in Washington, Timour Azhari in Beuirt; Edited by Mike Harrison and Angus MacSwan
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