Iraq's Kurdish regional government has called on the Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK) to "withdraw" from its territory to prevent civilian deaths, amid a campaign of Turkish airstrikes targeting the group.
A statement issued on Saturday, Kurdish President Massoud Barzani said the PKK "should withdraw its fighters from the Kurdish region so to ensure the civilians of Kurdistan do not become victim of that fighting and conflict".
The statement also condemned Turkey for bombing civilians, following reports that civilian homes were damaged in airstrikes in northwestern Iraq, while calling on both parties to resume peace talks.
"We condemn the bombing, which led to the martyrdom of the citizens of the Kurdish region, and we call on Turkey to not to repeat the bombing of civilians," the statement added.
Turkey launched airstrikes on Kurdish rebel camps in northern Iraq last week, its first such strikes since a peace process with the Kurds was launched in 2012.
Kurdish rivalry
On Friday, the Kurdish regional government accused the PKK of attacking an oil pipeline in northern Iraq.
The Kurdish government had been selling oil directly to Turkey in a move that sparked tensions between the regional government in Irbil and the federal government in Baghdad. Those sales were stopped as part of a deal with Baghdad earlier this year, though the Kurdish government has threatened to resume sales to the international market in recent weeks.
Tensions between Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party and the PKK of Abdullah Ocalan in Turkey date back decades. The two groups were opponents in a 1990s civil war, which ended in an accord that allowed PKK fighters to remain in Iraqi Kurdish territory.
In recent months, the PKK joined an uneasy alliance with Iraqi Kurdish fighters, known as the peshmerga, and the main Syrian Kurdish militia against ISIL group in northern Iraq and Syria.
In Syria, meanwhile, the Kurdish militia there said the Turkish military has targeted them four times since July 24, calling such attacks "provocative".
