ANKARA - Turkish rights groups called on Friday for a
UN-sponsored investigation after Turkish warplanes killed 35
villagers in an airstrike targeting Kurdish
rebels on the Iraqi
border that the government has called an operational
mistake.
The incident, which
is under government investigation, has raised tensions with
minority Kurds in Turkey, sparking clashes between
stone-throwing protesters and police in cities in the
restive, mainly pro-Kurdish southeast and areas in Istanbul.
The attack, one of the largest single-day civilian death
tolls since the militants launched their armed insurgency in
1984, came at a time when Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has
been trying to engage Kurds in talks to write a new
constitution expected to address long-held Kurdish
grievances.
"The incident requires a more detailed investigation, but it
is an execution without due process, and carries the
characteristics of a mass murder in terms of the number of
victims," human rights
groups IHD and Mazlumder said in a preliminary
report into
Wednesday's airstrike.