SDF commander Mazloum Abdi said he was in a convoy with US forces at Sulaymaniyah airport at the time of the attack.
The Iraqi government called on Turkey to apologize for an attack on an airport in the Kurdish region in the north of the country, denouncing what it described as “flagrant aggression” against its sovereignty in the region.
The request on Saturday came as a Turkish Defense Ministry official told Reuters news agency that no Turkish Armed Forces operation had taken place in that area in recent days.
The Iraqi presidency said the attack took place on Friday in the vicinity of Sulaymaniyah airport in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. It blamed Turkey for the attack and said that Ankara had no legal justification for continuing to “terrorize civilians under the pretext of the presence of hostile forces on Iraqi soil.”
“In this regard, we call on the Turkish government to take responsibility and make an official apology,” she said.
Turkey, which has spent decades fighting Kurdish armed groups in its east, has launched several military operations, including air strikes, in northern Iraq and northern Syria against Kurdish-led forces there.
Ankara considers the Kurdish-led forces “terrorists” allied with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said in a statement on Saturday that its commander, Mazloum Abdi, was at Sulaymaniyah airport at the time of the attack but “no damage was done.” .
Abdi denounced the attack on Saturday, telling the North Kurdistan news agency that at the time of the bombing a convoy included soldiers from the US-led coalition and members of the Iraqi Kurdish counter-terrorism force.
In response to a question about the reason for the attack, Abdi said, “It is a clear message from the Turks that they are annoyed and oppose our international relations and want to harm them.”
Abdi added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was looking for a “free victory” before the country’s parliamentary and presidential elections next month.
A US official confirmed to Reuters that there had been an attack on a convoy in the area with US military personnel inside, but said there were no casualties.
About 900 US troops remain in Syria, mostly in the Kurdish-administered northeast, as part of a US-led coalition fighting remnants of ISIS, or the Islamic State militant group.
An informed source close to the leadership of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that controls the Sulaymaniyah district, and two Kurdish security officials confirmed to Reuters that Abdi and three US military personnel were near the airport.
Amir Fandi of Al-Jazeera, quoting sources at Sulaymaniyah airport, said that the attack “damaged a large part of the facility’s outer fence, but did not result in any injuries.”
He pointed out that the attack came days after Turkey closed its airspace to planes coming to and from Sulaymaniyah due to what it said was the intense activity of PKK fighters there, and said that the bombing led to an escalation of tensions between the main parties in the Iraqi Kurdish government.
A statement from the Iraqi Kurdish regional government, which is primarily controlled by the KDP, appears to have blamed the PUK for Friday’s events. It accused them of instigating an attack on the airport and using “government institutions” for “illegal activities”.
Ankara has close ties with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which is the largest party in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and controls Erbil, the capital of the region.
Its rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, has closer ties to the PKK and dominates in Sulaymaniyah.
Fendi said in a report from Erbil that “the presidency of the Iraqi Kurdistan region called on both sides to stop exchanging accusations and investigate the circumstances of this recent bombing.”
This tense atmosphere between the two parties to the Kurdistan Regional Government comes at a time when the airspace in Turkey is still closed to flights coming from Sulaymaniyah Airport, and at a time when many say that the differences between the two parties to the government must reach a large extent. The end… as people here are preparing for the legislative elections scheduled for later this year.
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