At least five people lost their lives in a helicopter crash in a remote area of northern IraqIraqi Kurdistan authorities announced today, stressing that some of the victims were “members of the PKK».

The causes of the crash are not yet known, nor who owned the helicopter.

One Eurocopter An AS350 “crashed” in the Dohuk region overnight Wednesday-Thursday, “killing all passengers”, the counter-terrorism services of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region announced.

“At least five passengers were killed. The investigation (…) should determine who owned the helicopter and the causes of the incident,” Laouk Ghafouri, in charge of foreign media relations at the regional government, then tweeted.

“Some of the dead were members of the PKK, according to the first data of the investigation,” he told AFP.

Asked by AFP, fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an organization labeled a “terrorist” by Turkey and its Western allies, said they were “investigating” the incident without saying whether the victims were members of the organization.

Turkish security forces said in a statement that the helicopter was not theirs.

The PKK has advanced bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, and Turkey regularly conducts ground and air operations against the group in the region.

For the past 25 years, Turkey has maintained dozens of military posts in northern Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, which has no choice but to accept this presence.

In early March, Yazidi militants linked to the PKK were killed by drone strikes attributed to the Turkish military in the Sinjar region (north). A month earlier, a Turkish military base in northern Iraq was hit by eight rockets, causing no casualties.

In July 2022, artillery attacks attributed to Ankara against a Kurdistan recreation area resulted in nine civilian deaths, including women and children. Turkey had denied any responsibility and blamed the PKK.