The Erbil-based Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Masoud Barzani supports and covers for Turkey’s attacks against Iraq’s Kurdistan region, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) said on Saturday following an attack on Sulaymaniyah airport.
The KCK, an umbrella political organisation that includes the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), blamed Turkey for the attack that caused an explosion at the airport on Friday evening.
“We strongly condemn the attack against Sulaymaniyah airport on 7 April carried out by the fascist Turkish state,” the KCK said in a statement.
“We also condemn once more the KDP which encourages such attacks and tries to hide the crimes of the Turkish Republic,” said the statement, referring to the political party which dominates the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil headed by Nechirvan Barzani.
Stating that Turkey’s anti-Kurdish aggressive policies have been threatening the stability in the region, the KCK called on Kurdish people in Iraq and elsewhere to take a stance against the KDP’s collaboration with the Turkish government in Ankara.
The Kurdish organisation also expressed its respect for the patriotic attitude of the Kurds, particularly those in Sulaymaniyah, against the campaigns.
“We call on all international powers, particularly the Coalition, to take a stance against the Turkish Republic’s genocidal attacks that violate the international law and target Kurds,” the KCK said, referring to the US-led international coalition fighting against the Islamic State (ISIS) in the region.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main partner of the US-led coalition in northern Syria, on Saturday confirmed that its commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi was in Sulaymaniyah at the time of the attack on the international airport of the Kurdish-populated northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah.
The attack came after Turkey, which sees the SDF an extension of the PKK, announced this week that it has closed its airspace to flights to and from Sulaymaniyah, citing increased activities of the PKK as well as its “infiltration” into the airport.
The blast at the airport followed two helicopter crashes last month which claimed the lives of nine SDF fighters who were on their way to Sulaymaniyah.
Friday’s blast has heightened tensions between the KDP and its main rival, the Sulaymaniyah-based Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Bafel Talabani.
The KDP-dominated regional government, without naming the PUK, accused “an authoritarian party regime in Sulaymaniyah” of behaviour that led to the closure of Turkish airspace to flights to and from Sulaymaniyah airport, and to Friday’s attacks.
