ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) said Friday that their fighters were responsible for the September 12 explosion in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish Diyarbakir province.
The attack in the Kulp District left seven people dead and ten injured, which Turkey said were civilians. The Kurdish militant group, however, said the bombing targeted “spies” trying to track their positions in a statement put out by its armed wing the Peoples’ Defense Forces (HPG).
“They came to the guerrilla areas for this purpose … [but we] carried out a sabotage operation,” said the HPG, according to the PKK-affiliated ANF news outlet.
The PKK is a militant group that fights the Turkish state for greater political and cultural rights for Turkey’s Kurds. Ankara considers the PKK a terrorist organization.
On the attack, the HPG said that a group of Turkish “spies” disguised themselves as civilians on September 12 and visited the Kulp-Mus road to track down their positions, but were “sabotaged.” Turkish officials, however, said that the victims of the attack were “civilians” collecting wood .
The HPG and Turkey both released the same number of casualties.
“As a result of the operation, seven contras were killed and 10 other injured,” said the HPG.
The PKK uses the word “contra” to refer to anyone who is against them. The term was used between 1979-1990s to refer to US-backed right-wing rebels in Nicaragua fighting against leftist groups.
The roadside explosion was immediately blamed on the PKK by Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the time.
The PKK reiterated in Friday’s statement that they do not target civilians and unarmed pro-Turkish village guards, blaming the affiliated media outlets of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for “propagating” that the casualties were civilians.
In the framework of investigations into the incident, Turkish security forces arrested officials from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Kulp. They also removed the HDP’s mayor of the district, Mehmet Fatih Tas.
Turkish government officials have frequently claimed that the HDP is the political wing of the PKK, but the party denies this.
The PKK and Turkish state are locked in a nearly four-decade, sometimes-armed conflict, that has resulted in the deaths of about 40,000 people from both sides, including civilians.
Turkey is now in the third phase of its Operation Claw against PKK guerrillas in Kurdistan Region. The PKK has long based itself in Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) territory along the Qandil mountains on the Iraq-Turkey border, despite requests from the KRG to leave.
Clashes between both sides have heated up recently both inside and outside Turkey. The Turkish military mostly uses warplanes and drones to attack the group’s positions.
