Turkey has summoned the US ambassador in Ankara to protest the US stance regarding the killing of 13 Turks in Iraq, who were held by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The Turkish Foreign Ministry stated in a release today that US Ambassador David Satterfield was called to the ministry and was informed in the strongest terms of Turkey’s position regarding the US statement. The US State Department announced yesterday that it regretted the killing of the Turkish nationals, noting that it awaited additional confirmation of the circumstances surrounding their deaths. The US State Department added in its statement that if reports confirm that Turkish civilians were killed by the PKK, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization, then we condemn this act in the strongest possible terms.
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced the discovery of the bodies of 13 Turkish citizens in the Gara mountain region in northern Iraq, where the Turkish military is conducting an operation against PKK members in the area. Akar explained that the bodies were found in a cave that had been heavily bombarded by the Turkish military and that they belonged to civilians who had been kidnapped by the PKK. He added that forty-eight militants were killed during the four-day operation.
For his part, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalın criticized the world's silence in the face of what he described as PKK terrorist attacks against civilians, considering this shameful silence as complicity in the crime, threatening that Turkey would not remain silent. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also condemned the killing of the Turkish citizens in a tweet, stating: "I mourn the souls of our 13 civilian citizens who were martyred at the hands of PKK elements."
