NEW YORK — Some 50 people protested the Turkish government’s assaults on the Kurds at a rally in Union Square Aug. 1. Protests have also taken place in Berlin, London, Paris and elsewhere.

Edress Othman, 40, who originally is from Afrin in the northwestern corner of Syria, told the Militant Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is “using Islamic State as a cover to attack the real enemy — the Kurds.” He said Kurdish fighters in Syria are “the most effective force fighting Islamic State on the ground. They’ve made a lot of advances. The next step is to connect Kobani and Afrin.” The Turkish government “doesn’t want to see a strong Kurdish autonomous state or region there.” In Afrin, which a Kurdish civil administration organizes, “all minorities live in peace. People can go to school, to work. It’s a much different picture than the rest of Syria,” he said.

“The U.S. gives the green light for Turkey to bomb the Kurds, while the Kurds are the only ones on the ground fighting Islamic State,” said Newroz Samo, a court interpreter in New York, who grew up in northeastern Syria near the border with Iraq and Turkey.