SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused the United States of supporting Kurdish fighters who Turkish officials say “executed” 13 kidnapped Turks in northern Iraq.
Turkish ministry of defense said on Sunday that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters killed the 13 Turkish citizens, including military and police personnel, amid a military operation against the group.
Erdogan told supporters of his AK Party that the U.S. State Department’s statement of condemnation was a “joke”, according to Reuters.
Erdogan said the statement showed it supported the PKK and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara considers an offshoot of the PKK.
The United States on Monday condemned the killing of 13 Turks in the Gara region where Turkey launched the operation dubbed “Claw-Eagle 2” on February 10.
“The United States deplores the death of Turkish citizens in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq,” Spokesperson of U.S. State Department Ned Price said in a statement.
“If reports of the death of Turkish civilians at the hands of the PKK, a designated terrorist organization, are confirmed, we condemn this action in the strongest possible terms,” he added.
Erdogan further said if the United States “wants to continue our alliance globally and at NATO, you must stop siding with terrorists”.
“The blood of innocent people martyred in northern Iraq is on the hands of all defending, supporting and sympathizing with PKK terrorists,” he added.
Erdogan called on U.S. President Joe Biden to recognize the “terror group well”.
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said twelve of the kidnapped Turks had been shot in the head and one in the shoulder.
On Sunday, the PKK-affiliated People’s Defense Forces (HPG) denied the claims, saying the prisoners who it was holding, including Turkish intelligence, police and military personnel, had died in airstrikes carried out by Turkey in the Gara region.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, launched its armed insurgency in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
In the last two years Turkey’s fight against the PKK has increasingly focused on northern Iraq, where the group has its stronghold in the Qandil mountains on the Iranian border.
