Eight killed in Turkish air strikes in Iraq

Baghdad: Eight people were killed and 10 wounded on Saturday in air strikes by Turkish warplanes in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, an official Kurdish website reported.

"The Turkish warplanes violated the airspace of Kurdistan region in the morning and bombarded villages in Qandil mountain which left eight citizens and PKK fighters killed and 10 others wounded," reported Xinhua citing the official website of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a major Kurdish party in which the Iraqi president Fuad Masoum is a leading figure.

Most of the casualties occurred in Rawanduz area, located 350 km north of Baghdad.

Turkey recently launched an offensive against Islamic State (IS) militants and PKK rebels, including air strikes and artillery shelling against them in Syria and Iraq.

On July 24, Turkish jets bombed northern Iraq for the first time in the last two-and-a-half years, after a peaceful settlement for the Kurdish issue in Turkey was reached between Ankara and the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan in March 2013.

(IANS)