Erdogan calls al-Kadhimi, denies targeting a hospital in Sinjar

Shafaq News/ Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spoke over the phone with the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, according to Turkey's Communications Directorate on Saturday.

Erdogan and al-Kadhimi discussed the bilateral ties between Iraq and Turkey and shared views about the updates on the situation in the region, the Directorate stated.

"Turkey is content with the positive course of bilateral relations in the commercial, military, and intelligence fields," Erdogan said, "the cooperation in fighting terrorism should be strengthened."

"Contrary to the allegations of the terrorist organization, the target that was hit was not a hospital or a medical center, but was one of the places of accommodation of the organization," Erdogan said in reference to the Turkish airforces attack on a hospital in Sinjar on Tuesday last week.

Initially, the death toll of the attack had been put at three, but Iraqi officials said the day after that the number of dead had risen to eight.

Among the dead were four employees of the hospital and four fighters from the PKK-linked 80th Brigade of Iraq's powerful, state-sponsored Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces).

The 80th Brigade is made up of Iraq's Yazidi minority, who were persecuted by the Islamic State group from 2014 and whose bastion is Sinjar.