Turkey admitted 35 civilians were killed near Kurdish village

A senior Turkish official has acknowledged that 35 civilians were killed in an airstrike near a Kurdish village near the border with Iraq.
Turkey's military said earlier it had targeted suspected Kurdish militants.
But the victims of the attack Wednesday night are believed to have been the villagers involved in cigarette smuggling in Turkey from Iraq.
Ruling party vice-president Huseyin Celik said that an investigation was examining the failures of intelligence possible.
The attack on Wednesday night, took place near the village of the province of Sirnak of Uludere, in south-eastern Turkey.
In a statement, the General Staff of Turkey said Wednesday attacked the area
the night was inside northern Iraq and had no civilian population. He added that the raid was launched following suspected militants were preparing to attack Turkish security bases.
But Mr. Celik was quoted by news agency AFP as saying later that "if it appears to have been a mistake, a gaffe, rest assured that it will not be covered."



Peace, pro-Kurdish Democracy Party and condemned the air strike as a "massacre", saying that all the victims were civilians aged 16 to 20.
"Those killed were those who lived in smuggling. There were people studying for university exams among them," said party leader Selahattin Demirtas.
Mr. Celik added that some of the victims were the son of village guards who had helped Turkish troops in their fight against the rebels.
The Republican People's Party of opposition (CHP) urged the military to exercise greater care. While smuggling was against the law, "of being killed in an air raid was not what they deserved," a senior CHP leader told the Hurriyet website.
The angry demonstrators against the dead threw stones at police near Taksim Square in Istanbul early Thursday evening, Turkish agencies report.Explosions Diesel
Governor of the Province Vahdettin Ozkan said earlier that 20 people were killed, but his office later said that 35 were killed and one wounded.
"A crisis center is formed at the scene and prosecutors and security officials were sent there," he told Anatolia news agency.
Mayor Uludere was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying that all victims had suffered burns.
Local officials said barrels of diesel fuel by the group exploded.
Many victims were related.
Among those killed were using mules to cross the border when the incident occurred, they said.
"We were on our way home when the jets started bombing us," one survivor, ENCU Servet, told the pro-Kurdish Firat agency news.
The group was waiting on the Iraqi side of the border for some time about 3km (2 miles) from their village because they were told that the road was blocked by the military, the Turkish media report.
Photos from the scene showed bodies on a hill covered in blankets. The bodies were then taken to a local hospital.
The smuggling of fuel and cigarettes is said to be common between the villages along the Iraqi border. But the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) crossed the border into Turkey to stage attacks against Turkish forces.
After 24 Turkish soldiers were killed in raids by the PKK in October, the Turkish forces responded with a series of aerial and ground attacks.