QANDIL MOUNTAINS,— The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) denied Tuesday, that the Turkish army killed 34 Kurdish guerrillas of the party during air raids on positions in Qandil Mountains in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

Sky News Arabic quoted Bakhtiar Dogan, a spokesman for the PKK, as saying: “The Turkish warplanes did not launch any air strikes on the PKK positions in Qandil Mountains Monday night, and no clashes between the two sides have occurred during the past 24 hours.”

He added, “The Turkish authorities are exaggerating the size of losses in the ranks of the PKK in order to cover up the heavy losses incurred by the Turkish army at the hands of the PKK.”

The Turkish military said on Tuesday that 34 militants from PKK were killed in its latest air strikes on the group’s camps in Iraqi Kurdistan ‘s Qandil mountain region.

Turkey has been bombing PKK targets in Iraqi Kurdistan and in the Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey (Turkish Kurdistan) since July 24, in response to what it says are increased attacks by the Kurdish militants on members of the security forces.

Since it was established in 1984 the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state.

In the 1990s, the PKK limited its demands to establish an autonomous Kurdish region and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds,who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 75-million population but have long been denied basic political and cultural rights, its goal to political autonomy. A large Turkey’s Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.

In March 2013, its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan called a ceasefire. But violence has resumed after a suicide bombing blamed on Islamic State killed 32 pro-Kurdish activists in July 2015 in the Kurdish town of Suruc in Turkish Kurdistan in the southeast of the country.

(With files from Reuters | Iraqinews.com | AFP | Agencies)

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