SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Kurdistan Region Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani on Wednesday denied claims regarding the presence of any forces inside the Arbat drone strike except for the Sulaimani-based Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTG).
A deadly drone strike targeted the small airport of Arbat in southeast Sulaimani City last Monday. The strike killed three members of the CTG forces in the midst of their daily routine military training.
Turkey on Tuesday claimed that the Syrian-based Kurdish group fighters, the People Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara sees as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), were presented at the airport.
Ankara also claimed that the CTG were in the midst of training of the YPG/PKK fighters during the attack, without saying whether it was behind the attack or not.
Turkey regularly carries out air strikes that it says target Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq, and has dozens of outposts in Iraqi territory.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.
“The martyrs and wounded of the Arbat drone strike were only the heroic Peshmerga members of the Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG),” Qubad Talabani said during a meeting with the Head of the European Union’s Liaison Office in Erbil, Torkild Byg.
“There were no other forces inside the Arbat airport during the drone strike except for the CTG,” he added.
“This is a dangerous development in which an official force of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq has been targeted,” he continued.
The Deputy Prime Minister also pointed out that the CTG has been an essential partner of the Global Coalition forces in the fight against terror since its very foundation.
He also called on the Iraqi government, the International Coalition, and the EU to make practical steps in order to limit such attacks and violations.
