Iraqi-Kurdistan counter-terrorism units arrest suspect in Turkish diplomat murder

Iraqi Kurdish authorities on Saturday arrested a Kurdish man from Turkey in the hunt for the killers of a Turkish diplomat earlier this week.

The region's security council said its counterterrorism unit detained Mazloum Dag, a 27-year-old from Turkey's Diyarbakir region.

A wanted notice had been put out for Dag a day earlier in connection to Wednesday's killing of Turkish Vice Consul Osman Kose and two Iraqi nationals in the regional capital Erbil.

Turkey's Anadolu state news agency said the suspect is the brother of Dersim Dag, a member of Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party, the People's Democratic Party (HDP).

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the HDP of links to Turkey's outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The HDP also slammed the accusation that one of its deputies was "designated as a target because of his brother", without mentioning any names. 

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Turkey has carried out "comprehensive air operation" against bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iraqi Kurdistan's Qandil mountain area.

Since May, Turkey has been conducting a ground offensive and bombing campaign against Qandil to root out the PKK, considered a "terror organisation" by Ankara for its three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

Other air strikes Thursday night targeted "PKK bases and members" in the Makhmur area south of Iraq's northern city of Mosul, wounding two in a displacement camp, local sources told AFP.