PUK calls for urgent action to stop Turkey’s violations

PUK calls upon presidencies of Iraq to take immediate and urgent action to stop Turkish violations.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) bloc in the Iraqi Council of Representatives issued on Friday a statement, asking the three presidencies of Iraq to take immediate and urgent action to stop Turkish violations on Iraqi soil.

"With great pain, new martyrs and wounded have fallen from villages belonging to the Sulaymaniyah Governorate, specifically in the touristic (Kuna Masi) area due to the Turkish operation in which Iraqi sovereignty is violated with insistence and lack of respect for the Iraqi government's protest notes to the Turkish ambassador and without thinking about the sanctity of the blood of the villagers who fall victim to the Turkish incursion on the pretext of chasing opposition parties." The PUK bloc's statement said.

"We would like to point out that while we work to protect and preserve friendly relations with the neighboring country, Turkey, we affirm that the sanctity of the blood of our people and the sovereignty of our lands is a red line and basic principles that we work to protect and preserve," the statement said.

Accordingly, PUK bloc demanded the three presidencies to take immediate and urgent actions to deter the Turkish side in order to deliver a strong message that Iraq, its government and people are serious this time to stand firm in the face of these violations that justifiy every act they do in their path, even if it is the lives of citizens and their property and the sovereignty of Iraq.

"We also call on the Iraqi Foreign Ministry and the Iraqi representative in the UN Security Council to submit a request for an emergency session of the Security Council to stop the military operation inside Iraqi territories and to issue a decision to compensate the Iraqi civilian victims who fall as a result of these military operations," the statement added.

PUK bloc called for the formation of a legal committee that includes international lawyers to file legal cases in international courts to compensate the families of victims and losses of public and private property and to compel the Turkish government to pay them to the victims' families as a legal right as the least that can be done to console the families of the victims and the wounded.