PKK denies responsibility in explosion that killed a Peshmerga

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Saturday denied involvement in an explosion that killed one Peshmerga and injured another in northeastern Erbil province on Friday. 

“We, as the People's Defense Forces [HPG], declare that our forces had nothing to do with this incident and that our forces are not responsible for this explosion,” read a statement from the HPG, the armed wing of the PKK, published by PKK-linked ANF News on Saturday.

Two Peshmerga were returning from work late on Friday in Choman’s Balakayati area, going to their home village in Sidakan when their car struck explosives. Tariq Qadir was killed and Muzafar Hassan was injured. The local Peshmerga commander, Bahram Arif Yasin, blamed the PKK, saying the explosives were recently laid by the guerrillas who have bases in the mountainous area.

The HPG denied the charge and said the area has been riddled with landmines for decades. There are tens of millions of unexploded landmines and explosive ordinances across the Kurdistan Region’s borders with Iran, more than three decades after the devastating 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.  Dozens of people are maimed or killed by the devices every year.   

“The site has been mined since the Baathist regime and has not been cleaned yet,” read the HPG statement. It admitted to laying some mines in 2019 and 2020 in unpopulated areas as part of its defences against Turkish forces, but “both the people of the region and the officials of the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) have been informed that those areas are military areas and are mined and the adequate alert has been given.”

“Despite that, on March 12, KDP forces knew those places yet entered the minefields and that tragedy occurred,” the HPG said.

Turkey frequently bombs the area, targeting the PKK. It has conducted three major military operations against the PKK in the past year within Kurdistan Region borders. 

Acrimony between the KDP, the biggest and oldest Kurdistan Region-based party, and the PKK, an armed group that has fought for increased rights for Kurds in Turkey, has existed for decades and tensions between them have increased recently. Last December, a Peshmerga was killed in clashes with the PKK in Duhok province.