SULAIMANI (ESTA) — A team from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) refused a statement by the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) about operations in which suspects having links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were arrested.
The KRSC said in a statement on Monday that the security forces had carried out operations against security threats and prevented “sabotage attacks” in the Region in the past days.
It added that two specific sets of planned attacks, including one by the PKK, were uncovered and foiled through close coordination of police, security, intelligence and counter-terrorism officials across the Region.
The security council said dozens of suspects were detained during the operations, some of which had links to the PKK, who planned to attack a foreign diplomatic mission in Erbil, assassinate members of the foreign missions, and carry out attacks on private companies from that country operating in the Region and on a major western brand in the Region.
A spokesperson for the KRSC said in a statement late on Monday that the council consists of five members, including chancellor, head of Asayish agency, head of information (Zanyari) agency, head of protection (Parastin) agency and head of Peshmerga intelligence agency.
Three of the members belong to the PUK while the two others belong to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the statement read.
“After questioning the three high members of the PUK within the Region’s security council, it was found that the PUK’s officials aren’t aware of such operation, released in a statement on October 26, 2020 under the name of the security council,” the PUK’s team said.
“PUK members in the security council refuse this statement and any other similar statement and they will not confirm it because they are not aware of any such incident took place in the Region, and they will not allow any statement to be released under the name of the council if it’s main members are not discussed with before releasing the statement.”
On Monday, the Kurdistan Communist Union (KCK), an umbrella group of the PKK, said the KRSC’s statement about the detention of a group belonging to the movement “has no basis and it is completely far from reality”.
“This misleading news has been made in coordination with the spy agency MIT and aims to legitimize attacks on our movement,” the KCK said in a statement, referring to the Turkish National Intelligence Organization.
