Erbil shooting: politician’s brother arrested

Security services in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region yesterday said they had arrested the brother of a politician in the Turkish parliament for the assassination of a Turkish diplomat in the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital, Erbil.

The diplomat was one of three shot dead on Wednesday when a gunman opened fire in a restaurant.

“The Kurdistan Region announced on Saturday the arrest of the man who planned the assassination of a Turkish diplomat in Erbil,” the Asayish security service said.

It did not name the suspect but said “reports indicated” that his sister served as a Kurdish politician in the Turkish parliament. A statement from another Iraqi Kurdish security force, the Counter Terrorism Department, named the suspect as Mazlum Dag.

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party later confirmed that the arrested man was the brother of one of its politicians, Dersim Dag.

The party said it condemned the attack, and said “using the attack as a reason to make one of our lawmakers a target through the name of her brother is unacceptable”.

Local authorities as well as the government in Baghdad, the US and several other countries condemned the incident.

Baghdad and Ankara said that the killing wouldn’t harm relations between them but Turkey called for swift action to find the perpetrator.

“The criminal act will not affect the nature of the relations between Baghdad and Ankara, but will increase the two sides’ determination to support the relations to serve the two friendly peoples,” Iraq’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Al Hakim told Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in a call late last week.

Political violence is comparatively rare in Erbil.

The shooter fled in a car, Kurdish security officials said. The attack took place weeks after Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish separatist militants.