The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iraq has sent an official note of protest to Turkey in connection with the recent bombardments of Kurdish provinces in northern Iraq. The statement says that bombardments resulted in destruction and fires, complicating relations between the two countries.

The Iraqi MFA summoned a Turkish representative to officially express its protest, according to which for several hours in the night from Wednesday to Thursday Turkish army units fired targets on the Iraqi territories. At the same time the note of Iraqi authorities says that Iraq will not allow to use its territory for preparing attacks on neighboring countries, and gunmen of the Workers' Party of Kurdistan (PKK) have illegally penetrated into the country.

Turkey has not confirmed information on bombardments, however authorities of the country deployed a lot of tanks and thousands of soldiers on the border with Iraq, explaining it with the necessity to fight against Kurdish separatists, who are based on the Iraqi territory. Ankara assures that about 4 000 PKK gunmen have based in the north of Iraq and can raid Turkish territories.

Despite the tense relations between Iraq and Turkey, Baghdad prefers to settle the dispute between the two countries, and not between Ankara and insurgents, the BBC Russian service reports.