FRANKFURT, Germany – The war between the Turkish government and Kurdish rebels spilled into the streets of Germany this week, with fierce clashes between thousands of ethnic Kurds and Turks that police struggled to keep apart.
Clashes took place in Frankfurt, Stuttgart and the German capital, Berlin.
Ethnic Turks and Kurds butted heads in Frankfurt on Thursday, where police reportedly used pepper spray as they struggled to control the violence.
“What do they expect, should Kurds just watch their brothers and sisters massacred by the Turkish government?” asked Onur Kizilbas, an ethnic Kurd born in the Turkey’s Kurdish Dersim province who was at the Frankfurt rally.
Tensions between ethnic Kurds and Turks in Germany – the country in Europe with the largest number of immigrants from both communities – have been on the rise since Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) reignited their conflict in late July, ending a two-year ceasefire.
Since then, Turkey has been carrying out near-daily air raids and attacks against the PKK in its own Kurdish southeast and in northern Iraq, where the rebels operate some military camps.
The tensions reached boiling point after the Turkish government imposed a curfew last Friday in the Cizre district of the country’s southeastern Kurdish Sirnak province.
Reports claim that more than two dozen civilians have been killed as the Turkish military says it is carrying out a security sweep in the tense, closed-off district.
According to Turkish Interior Minister Selami Altinok, up to 32 PKK militants had been killed in Cizre, of whom only one is a civilian. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, HDP, however said that the civilian death toll is 21, including children.
The conflict between the two sides resumed after the PKK claimed responsibility for the killings of two Turkish policemen and Turkey began air raids, artillery attacks and security sweeps against the group.
Clashes in Turkey between Kurds and Turks left at least a dozen people injured, some with blood and cuts on their heads or other parts of the body.
Turks at their rally refused to speak to Rudaw and hurled anti-Kurdish abuse at a reporter who tried to approach them.
In the German capital Berlin some 100 Turks affiliated with the Grey Wolves, a Turkish far-right, extremist organization, waved their flags and verbally attacked Kurds on the other side of a police barrier. The Kurds reacted by hurling eggs across the line.
Demonstrations also were held by Islamist and far-right Turks who oppose the PKK.
In some German cities, clashes between the two sides left dozens wounded.
“Happy are those who can call themselves Turks,” Turkish protesters chanted, repeating a slogan that is still forced upon Kurds in Turkey at school, university or work.
At a rally in Stuttgart, Alan Mandali who has roots in the Kurdistan Region said their rally was attacked by protesters angered at hearing anti-Turkish slogans.
“Those fascists attacked us just like they do in Kurdistan,” he said. “Yes, our slogans weren’t friendly, but we tried friendliness for quite too long!”
Tensions across Germany have been high because of events in Turkey and due to thousands of war refugees mainly from Syria – among them Kurds -- have flooded into the country as Europe faces its worst refugee influx since World War II.
Germany, which is home to about two million ethnic Turks and around half that number of Kurds, has firmly stood beside the autonomous Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq in its war against the Islamic State group (ISIS), which has raged for more than a year.
Last month, the German government decided to withdraw its troops and missiles from Turkey, after Ankara started attacks against the PKK.
Some 40,000 people have been killed in the three-decade conflict in Turkey between the government and the PKK, which remains banned in the United States and Europe.
