Iraq Says Drone Which Killed Three Kurdish Officers Came From Trukey

A high-ranking military official in Baghdad revealed on Tuesday that a drone responsible for the deaths of three Kurdish counterterrorism officers had originated from neighboring Turkey. The incident has sparked condemnation for the violation of Iraq's sovereignty. The drone strike occurred at Arbat airfield, located southeast of Sulaimaniyah, the second-largest city in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. Tragically, the attack claimed the lives of three members of the counterterrorism forces, leaving three others injured. General Yehya Rassoul, the spokesman for the federal armed forces commander in chief, disclosed that on Monday, around 5 pm (1400 GMT), "the drone entered Iraqi airspace, crossing the border from Turkey, and bombarded the Arbat airfield," which primarily serves as a base for crop-spraying aircraft. Rassoul firmly asserted that this drone attack represented a severe breach of Iraq's sovereignty, and he emphasized that Iraq retains the right to take measures to halt such violations. Turkey has escalated its drone strikes on Kurdish targets within both Iraq and Syria in recent months, although casualties among Iraqi Kurdish security forces have been relatively infrequent. General Rassoul condemned these recurrent attacks as inconsistent with the principles of good neighborly relations between states. He emphasized that they pose a threat to Iraq's efforts to foster positive and balanced political, economic, and security relations with its neighboring countries. Notably, Turkish military operations have primarily targeted the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its Syrian Kurdish ally, the People's Defense Units (YPG). In a separate incident, a Turkish drone strike on Sunday resulted in the death of a senior PKK official and three fighters in the Sinjar Mountains of northwestern Iraq, as confirmed by Iraqi Kurdish authorities. The United Nations mission in Iraq joined in condemning the attack on Arbat airfield, calling for an end to violations of Iraqi sovereignty and advocating for addressing security concerns through dialogue and diplomacy rather than military strikes. Turkey's military activities in northern Iraq have been a longstanding issue, with Ankara maintaining numerous military posts in the region under an agreement initially forged with the government of Saddam Hussein. The ongoing conflict involving the PKK has frequently spilled over the border into northern Iraq, exacerbating tensions in the area.