Assassinations of Kurdish activists thought to be targeted by Turkish intelligence services in Iraqi Kurdistan have not yet been properly investigated by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), reported Roj News.
The Turkish National Intelligence Service (MİT) is believed by many in the Iraqi-Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah to have organised the assassinations of four Kurdish political activists in the area since 2021.
The last victim, feminist scholar Nagihan Akarsel, was fatally shot outside her home in Sulaymaniyah on 4 October.
Kurdish political activist Yasin Bulut was assassinated in Sulaymaniyah on 17 September, a day after Ferhat Barış Kondu, a political refugee and Kurdish political activist, was shot and wounded by masked assailants in his office in Sulaymaniyah.
On 18 September, Ejî Emîn, PUK Intelligence Forces Director of Information, announced the arrest of the suspected perpetrators of the attacks against Bulut and Kondu.
Nevertheless, the government of the Kurdistan Region and the Asayish security forces have not yet revealed the names of the murderers, ANF reported.
Mehmet Zeki Çelebi, a Kurdish activist who moved from his hometown in Turkey to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to avoid persecution 12 years ago, was assassinated in front of his shop in the city of Sulaymaniyah on 17 May. Çelebi’s family says the identity of his murderers are still unknown.
On 5 October, the security forces in Sulaymaniyah announced their arrest of suspects in the killing of Nagihan Akarsel. Days later, Turkey’s ambassador to Iraq, Ali Rıza Güney, said that Turkish forces were targeting people believed to be linked to outlawed Kurdish militant organisation in response to a question on Akarsel’s killing.
However, there has so far been no hint of a comprehensive investigation into the assassinations.
Ferhad Şibli, co-chair of the Northern and Eastern Syria Autonomous Administration Executive Council, and three of his friends were killed in a vehicle bombed by the invading Turkish state in Kelar on 17 June, Rojnews reported.
On August 28, Tevgera Azadi Board Member Suheyl Xurşid Eziz, known as Mamoste Şemal, was murdered in front of his house in Kifri town of Germiyan Administration.
Rojnews reported that although it had sought to meet with Sulaymaniyah Asayish Spokesperson Yasin Sami regarding the assassinations, he responded, “we do not have any explanation at the moment.”
