Few hundred Iraqi Kurds protest ongoing Turkish military bombardments

Sulaimaniyah, Iraq: A few hundred Iraqi Kurds demonstrated on Sunday, two days after an attack near the Sulaimaniyah airport, against ongoing Turkish military bombardments in their area. When the commander of the Kurdish-led and US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was there, the bombing on Friday resulted in an explosion close to the airport wall. There were also American personnel there, but according to the Pentagon, no one was hurt. Sulaimaniyah, the second city in Iraq’s independent Kurdish region, saw some 400 demonstrators walking through its centre, many of them in their middle years. They waved the flag of Iraqi Kurdistan and held a banner denouncing the airport bombardment as a “terrorist act”. Organised by activists and former parliamentarians, the demonstrators also shouted against the “dictator” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, according to an AFP correspondent. “This is not the first Turkish aggression against civilian targets in the region,” said Ali Amine, 66, a retired civil servant. “It has become a permanent attack. Sometimes it’s villages, sometimes civilian targets – agricultural land, water or electricity installations.” Another protester, Fatma Hamid, 55, denounced “the lax positions” of authorities in the region which has been autonomous for three decades. Turkey has long maintained military positions inside northern Iraq, where it regularly launches operations against Turkish Kurdish fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK, which Ankara and its Western allies classify as a “terrorist” organisation, operates rear bases in Iraq’s north. Since 1984 the PKK has waged an insurgency in Turkey that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Turkey regards the main component of the SDF, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), as an offshoot of the PKK. On 3 April, Ankara halted flights to and from Sulaimaniyah until at least July 3, blaming increased PKK activity in and around the airport. A source at the Turkish defence ministry denied any involvement by the country’s military in the bombardment of Sulaimaniyah airport. Iraqi President Abdel Latif Rashid on Saturday condemned Turkey’s “military operations against the Kurdistan region, the last being the bombardment against Sulaimaniyah civilian airport”. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.