MAINZ, Germany – Many politicians in Germany condemned Turkey’s military crackdown on Kurdistan Workers‘ Party (PKK) bases in Kurdistan, as thousands of Diaspora Kurds in Europe and the United States protested against “Turkish aggression in Kurdistan.”
Both the politicians and protesters condemned Turkey, accusing it of using a crackdown on the Islamic State (ISIS) group as a pretext to strike at the PKK.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip “Erdogan’s alleged fight against ISIS proves to be an excuse to take action against the Kurds, who inflicted a severe election defeat on him,” said Omid Nouripour, a German Green Party spokesman.
After a deadly terrorist attack in the Turkish town of Suruc on the Syrian border on Monday, the Turkish government announced a crackdown on ISIS.
But nationwide raids were mostly against the PKK, and on Friday and Saturday Turkish jets attacked the group’s military base in the Qandil Mountain in the Kurdistan Region.
“It is incontestable that Turkey has a right to defend itself against the inhuman terror of the Islamic State,” said German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. “But it is also incontestable that the process of reconciliation between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party has to continue,” the minister said in a public broadcast.
Last Monday’s suicide bombing in Suruc, which killed 32 people and is blamed on ISIS, led to demonstrations in Germany and other parts of Europe against Turkey, which is widely seen to be in cahoots with the religious fanatics.
“It is unbelievable how Turkey behaves since the start of the war,” said Kurdish student Gorran Tofiq, who attended a rally in Frankfurt. “For years they haven’t done anything but help the terrorists get to Kurdistan. And now they claim to take up arms against the terrorists, but actually the first thing they did was attack Kurds.”
On Saturday, thousands of protesters filled the streets of German cities like Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Ulm.
In Berlin, MPs of the ruling coalition have been openly talking about the redrawing of Middle Eastern borders.
“In this connection, borders which were a consequence of the First World War and contribute to the unrest, should be reviewed,” said Conservative MP Roderich Kiesewetter, a former colonel in the German Army.
Jan Korte, vice-chairman of the Leftist parliamentary group in Germany, said: “I want to bring back to mind that (the Kurds) are the forces fighting the Islamic State almost on their own. So we reject this kind of policies (by Turkey).”
In the German city of Ulm, Azad Ahmad, who has roots in the Kurdish city of Qamishli, said: “The West has to realize that we, the Kurds, are one of their few reliable allies in the region. Turkey has its own plans and they clearly contradict the values and strategies of the West and of the Kurds!”
Germany hosts about 1 million Diaspora Kurds from all parts of Kurdistan.
Since the Islamic State attack on the Kurdistan Region last year, the German government has sent advisors to Kurdistan to train the Peshmerga and has been supplying them with military equipment.
Germany is one of the few countries supplying the Peshmerga directly, instead of via the Iraqi central government in Baghdad.
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