Arbil (Iraq) (AFP) – Iraqi Kurdish authorities announced Saturday they had arrested two suspects involved in the murder of three people, including a Turkish diplomat, in the regional capital Arbil this week.
The autonomous region’s security council first said its counterterrorism unit had arrested “the main perpetrator” Mazloum Dag, a 27-year-old from Turkey’s Diyarbakir region.
The council had put out a wanted notice for Dag a day earlier in connection to Wednesday’s killing of Turkish Vice Consul Osman Kose and two Iraqi nationals.
It later announced it had also arrested Mohammad Biskesiz, identifying him as “one of the accomplices of Mazloum Dag”.
It did not specify Biskesiz’s nationality or whether he was apprehended with Dag or separately.
Turkey’s Anadolu state news agency said Dag is the brother of Dersim Dag, a member of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP).
The HDP, the country’s second largest opposition group, is regularly accused by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of links to Turkey’s outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The HDP “strongly” condemned the Arbil attack, calling it an “absolutely unacceptable provocation attempt”.
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