Mehdi Gholizadeh, Press TV, Ankara
Some of the main political parties in Turkey are pointing the finger at the US and Israel over a botched airstrike that had killed around 34 civilians in the southeast of the country last month.
The victims were targeted by Turkey’s F-16 fighter jets as they were initially believed to be members of the armed separatist group of Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, but were later confirmed to be a group of local smugglers.
The airstrike was widely believed to be the result of an intelligence failure.
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, the BDP, has called on the government to declare the source of intelligence that had led to the deadly attack. A senior member of the party has criticized the US ambassador to Turkey who had said the source of the intelligence should be kept secret.
Following the US ambassador’s remark, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, Republican People’s party, advised Turkish journalists to ask from the Israeli embassy about the source of the intelligence. He had earlier urged Ankara to openly declare whether it obtained the intelligence from Israel or the US.
The controversy over the reported role of Israeli and US drones in the deadly airstrike comes as some politicians have called for an immediate end to what they call Turkey’s intelligence reliance on Israel and the US.
Turkey uses Israel’s Heron drones and the US Predator drones for gathering intelligence in its fight against the PKK, but the credibility of the intelligence obtained by the drones has been questioned by some politicians in the country.
Turkish government has vowed that it will carry out an investigation into the airstrike, mainly by closely reviewing four hours of footage related to the airstrike.
via PressTV – BDP blames US & Israel for deadly Turkish airstrike.