The military wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has released a video showing an example of the gas bombs allegedly used by the Turkish army during its attacks on Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, Fırat News Agency reported on Sunday.
The bomb in the video is a gas grenade produced in June 2014, according to the information in Turkish on its label. The People’s Defence Forces (HPG) have not provided information on the type of gas grenade.
An earlier video released by the HPG in September showed Kurdish guerrillas clearly extremely unwell and in convulsions.
At the time, they also announced that 17 Kurdish fighters had been killed in northern Iraq as a result of Turkey’s chemical weapon attacks.
The video shared by the HPG escalated calls from human rights advocates and politicians in Turkey and abroad for the initiation of an international investigation into allegations regarding Turkey’s use of chemical weapons.
The International Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the watchdog of the Chemical Weapons Convention to which Turkey is a signatory, is the most competent international body to investigate the allegations but has remained silent so far despite ongoing protests in Turkey and Europe.
The Turkish government denies the allegations, though the country’s defence minister accepted the use of tear gas during a hostage rescue operation in Iraq’s Mount Gara in 2021. Minister Hulusi Akar claims the use of tear gas by the military is justified under certain circumstances, but according to Jan Van Aken of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which recently published a report on the allegations against Turkey, the usage in question falls under prohibited uses.
