Security services in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region said on Saturday they had arrested the brother of a lawmaker serving in the Turkish parliament for the assassination of a Turkish diplomat in the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital Erbil.
The diplomat was one of at least two people shot dead on Wednesday when a gunman opened fire in a restaurant where Turkish diplomats were dining.
"The Kurdistan Region announced on Saturday the arrest of the man who planned the assassination of a Turkish diplomat in a restaurant in Erbil, less than a week after the attack," the Asayish internal security service said in a statement.
It did not name thesuspect but said "reports indicated" that his sister served as aKurdish lawmaker in the Turkish parliament. A separate statement from anotherIraqi Kurdish security force, the Counter Terrorism Department, gave thesuspect's name as Mazlum Dag.
Turkey'spro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) later confirmed that the man whohad been arrested was the brother of one of its lawmakers, Dersim Dag.
It said it stronglycondemned the attack on the diplomat, and said "using the attack as areason to make one of our lawmakers a target through the name of her brother isa provocation and unacceptable".
An accomplice ofMazlum Dag's has also been arrested, the security services said in a laterstatement.
Political violenceis comparatively rare in Erbil, capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous northernKurdish region, which has been spared the civil war and ethnic strife that hitthe rest of Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
The shooter fled ina car driven by an accomplice, two Kurdish security officials and a witnesssaid.
The attack tookplace weeks after Turkey launched a new military offensive against Kurdishseparatist militants based in northern Iraq.
Ankara's main enemyin Iraq is the PKK group, which has based fighters in the mountainous borderregion, north of Erbil, during a decades-long insurgency in southeasternTurkey.
Turkey and theruling Kurdish party in Erbil, the KDP, have blamed the PKK for otherTurkey-related incidents in northern Iraq including the storming of a Turkishmilitary camp earlier this year.
