Turkish Foreign Minister, Iraqi Kurdistan's Leadership Discuss Murder Of Diplomat In Erbil

(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Turkish Foreign Minister, Iraqi Kurdistan's Leadership Discuss Murder of Diplomat in Erbil

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has discussed the assassination of an employee of the country's consulate general in Erbil with Iraqi Kurdistan's President Nechirvan Barzani, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, and Iraqi Foreign Minister Muhammad Ali Hakim, the Turkish Foreign Ministry reported on Wednesday

ANKARA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th July, 2019) Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has discussed the assassination of an employee of the country's consulate general in Erbil with Iraqi Kurdistan's President Nechirvan Barzani, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, and Iraqi Foreign Minister Muhammad Ali Hakim, the Turkish Foreign Ministry reported on Wednesday.

Turkish media reported earlier in the day about an armed attack on a restaurant in Erbil, where employees of the Turkish consulate were dining. An Iraqi security source told Sputnik that the deputy consul general of Turkey in Erbil had been killed.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry later confirmed the death of one of the employees of the consulate general.

"Our minister has discussed the attack in Erbil in phone conversations with Nechirvan and Masrour Barzani, and also with the Iraqi foreign minister," the ministry said in a statement.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is thought to be behind the assassination. The Turkish government has been fighting the PKK, which seeks to establish a Kurdish autonomy in Turkey, since the early 1980s. Turkish security forces carry out regular anti-PKK raids across the country.