Turkish warplanes launched air strikes against suspected Kurdish militants in northern Iraq near the Turkish border overnight, the military said on Thursday, but local officials said the attack killed 35 smugglers who were mistaken for guerrillas.
The Turkish military confirmed it had launched the strikes after unmanned drones spotted suspected rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but said there were no civilians in the area and it was investigating the incident. The attack, which Turkey's largest pro-Kurdish party called a "crime against humanity", sparked clashes between hundreds of stone-throwing protesters and police in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's restive mainly Kurdish south-east.
Police responded by firing water cannon and tear gas at the demonstrators. Seven people were detained. One police officer was hurt after being hit by a stone, witnesses said. "We have 30 corpses, all of them are burned. The state knew that these people were smuggling in the region. This kind of incident is unacceptable. They were hit from the air," said Fehmi Yaman, mayor of Uludere in Sirnak province. The Sirnak governor's office said 35 people had been killed and one wounded during an operation near the border with Uludere district.
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) said party leaders were heading for the area and that it would hold demonstrations in Istanbul and elsewhere to protest the deaths. "This is a massacre," BDP Deputy Chairwoman Gultan Kisanak told a news conference in Diyarbakir.
"This country's warplanes bombed a group of 50 of its citizens to destroy them. This is a war crime and a crime against humanity," she said. The Turkish military said it had learnt the PKK had sent many militants to the Sinat-Haftanin area, where the strikes occurred in northern Iraq, to retaliate after recent militant losses in clashes.