Turkey murders again in Iraq

From Monday's "Iraq snapshot:"

Monday, October 10, 2022.  A year later, the UN suddenly frets over Iraq -- and let's get honest about ourselves with regards to our lack of support for Will Lehman and the film BROS.

Last week, Tom O'Conner (NEWSWEEK) reported:

As U.S. officials roundly condemn the ongoing series of Iranian strikes against Kurdish rivals in northern Iraq, Washington has also expressed concern over a separate Turkish campaign against Kurdish forces in the same region.

[. . .]

"We have repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding Turkish operations in Iraq," a State Department spokesperson told Newsweek, "urging that the government of Turkey coordinate more closely with Iraqi authorities on cross-border military operations against terrorist targets."

Concerns.  Concerns?  Yeah.

According to RUDAW, the government of Turkey is admitting to the murder:

The Turkish ambassador to Iraq said Sunday that members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and associates of the group are Ankara’s targets in response to the recent assassination of a women’s rights activist in the city of Sulaimani.

Rights activist Nagihan Akarsel, who had ideological ties to the PKK, was shot multiple times and killed in Sulaimani on Tuesday by assailants in the city’s Bakhtiyari neighborhood. Her ties to the Kurdish armed group quickly led droves of people on social media to blame Turkey for her death.

“Those who are affiliated with the PKK are indeed our targets,” Turkish Ambassador Ali Riza Guney said in response to a question from Rudaw’s Payam Sarbast during a press conference in the Kurdistan Region’s capital of Erbil.

It can't be used to promote war (the way a death in Iran has been), so Nagihan's murder doesn't get US press attention.   NEWS.AM notes:

Hakan Fidan, head of Turkey's National Intelligence Agency (MİT), met with the Iraqi Turkmen Front earlier this week, raising questions from Iraqi opposition politicians over his visit in mid-September, Ahval writes.

Fidan's visit to the capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region, Erbil, on Oct. 4 coincided with the killing of Kurdish figure Nagihan Akarsel in a shootout in Sulaymaniyah province, the Kurdish website Medya News reported.

The Iraqi coordination structure, an opposition body made up of Shiite parties, has called for an investigation, and a member of the structure, Turki Sedan, said the visit was organized without notifying Iraq's central government.