Turkey bombs Kurd areasof Iraq, 2 injured

There is mounting tension between Turkey and its Kurdish population Turkey has bombed the Sulaimaniyah and Arbil provinces of Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region, wounding one civilian, Kurdish officials said on Wednesday. "The Turkish aerial bombardment was renewed on Tuesday night and the civilian Ismail Baz Hamed, 20, was wounded during this bombing," said Hassan Abdullah, the mayor of the Qalat Dizah area in Sulaimaniyah.
"The bombing caused heavy damage to farms and livestock in Qalat Dizah," he said.
Two Iraqi villagers were reported heavily wounded in the attack while 200 cattle were killed.
An official from Kurdistan region's interior ministry said there were also strikes in Arbil province.
"Turkish airplanes bombed many areas... in Arbil on Tuesday night," the official said on condition of anonymity.
It was the second time Turkey has reportedly carried out strikes in Kurdistan this month, as part of its long-running conflict with the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has bases in the region.
The Turkish military launched an operation in Kurdistan last month after a PKK attack killed 24 soldiers in the town of Cukurca near the Iraqi border, the army's biggest loss since 1993.
Listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, the PKK took up arms for Kurdish independence in southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has killed about 45,000 people.
Meanwhile, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan apologised for the killing of more than 13,000 Kurds by the Turkish military in the late 1930s.
He is the first Turkish leader to make the apology.
The killings occurred when the army crushed a Kurdish rebellion in Dersim, using aerial bombings and poison gas.
The apology comes at a time of tension between Turkey and its minority Kurdish population.
Mr Erdogan made the unexpected apology during a meeting of party officials in the Turkish capital Ankara.
"If there is need for an apology on behalf of the state, if there is such a practice in the books, I would apologise and I am apologising," Mr Erdogan said in remarks which were televised.
The killings took place between 1936 and 1939 when the Kurdish population of the south-eastern region of Dersim - now known as Tunceli - resisted the efforts of the newly formed Turkish republic to exert its authority there.
Mr Erdogan's apology appeared to be part of a war of words with the leader of the CHP opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, whose family has strong links with Tunceli.
"Dersim is the most tragic event in our recent history. It is a disaster that should now be questioned with courage. The party that should confront this incident is not the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). It is the CHP, which is behind this bloody disaster, who should face up to this incident," Mr Erdogan said.
Mr Erdogan's government has made some attempt to win over Turkey's large Kurdish minority, which lives mainly in the south-east of Turkey, by improving their legal and cultural rights.
But he has also taken a tough stance towards the Kurdish insurgency and its supporters, with hundreds of Kurdish activists arrested in recent months.