The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 79/No. 30      August 24, 2015

 
(front page)
Backed by US, Turkish gov’t
expands war on Kurds
 

BY BRIAN WILLIAMS  
As Washington beefs up its military operations from the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey with airstrikes in Syria primarily aimed at Islamic State, the Turkish rulers have been stepping up their attacks on Kurdish fighters in Turkey and Iraq along with provocative actions targeting Kurdish-controlled areas on its border with Syria. Protests have condemned Ankara’s assaults, and Washington and NATO’s complicity, both in Turkey and beyond.

Thousands attended a demonstration in Istanbul Aug. 9 called by the Peace Bloc, a coalition of 80 organizations, reported Hurriyet Daily News. Authorities deployed water cannons and attempted to prevent participation by blocking roads leading to the action.

The previous day some 5,000 Kurds and supporters rallied in Cologne, Germany. Hundreds of others took to the streets in Paris; Brussels, Belgium; Manchester, England; and in protest actions in several U.S. cities.

Ankara’s airstrikes against the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) camps in northern Iraq have killed hundreds and spread fires through the mountainous areas, forcing residents to flee. Civilian villages have also been hit, including Zargali, where 10 people were killed Aug. 1.

The Turkish government says the PKK has retaliated by killing at least 20 members of the Turkish security forces.

Despite calls by Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraqi Kurdistan, that the PKK pull back from the Kurdish region there, PKK fighters vowed that they would stay. “As PKK and as Kurds, we are not only fighting for Kurdistan, we are fighting for the world,” PKK Commander Chem Peri told Rudaw News.

Last December the PKK along with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units in Syria (YPG) fought to reach Mount Sinjar in northwestern Iraq where thousands of members of the Yazidi religious group had fled from Islamic State attacks. The Kurdish fighters succeeded in leading them to safety.

“Fighting against ISIS [Islamic State] makes us feel good like we are doing something good for humanity,” 25-year-old female commander Dilan Serdar told Rudaw News.

Police raids target Kurds

In Turkey police raids have led to the arrests of some 1,700 people, the vast majority of them accused of being members of the PKK and other fighters for Kurdish rights. While the cops have detained a small number of Islamic State suspects, many “have been quietly released,” reported the New York Times.

In the Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey, special operation police teams raided a construction site in Yuksekova Aug. 5, taking into custody dozens of Kurdish workers. A video being circulated on social media shows the detainees being forced to lie face down on the ground with their hands tied behind their back as the cops yell at them, “You will face the power of the Turk!”

In battles with police in the nearby town of Silopi Aug. 7, four Kurdish protesters were killed, as demonstrators sought to prevent the cops from entering their neighborhoods. “Police forces also set six houses on fire and opened fire on the ambulances that were carrying the wounded civilians to the hospital,” reported Kurdishquestion website.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s perspective is to move toward early elections later this year to reverse a blow his Justice and Development Party (AKP) suffered in elections in June. Winning 13 percent of the vote, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) entered parliament for the first time and blocked the AKP from keeping the majority it had held for 12 years. The vote set back Erdogan’s plans to expand the executive powers of the presidency. The deadline for forming a governing coalition is Aug. 23, though little progress seems to have been made as the Turkish government focuses on attacking the Kurds.

“We will make them sorry for wanting to go to early polls,” HDP Co-chair Selahattin Demirtas told the crowd at the Aug. 9 Istanbul rally, expressing his view that gains won by the Kurds will not be reversed.

U.S. steps up airstikes in Syria

Washington began launching airstrikes from the Incirlik Air Base Aug. 5 and has deployed six F-16 fighters along with 300 military personnel to the base. This is in addition to the 1,700 U.S. forces that had already been stationed there, according to Defense Department data.

The base is now central to U.S. airstrikes in Syria, mainly against Islamic State, but also to provide air cover to the several dozen U.S.-trained forces on the ground in Syria when they get into confrontations with al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front or Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces. In one of their first actions the “trainees” suffered a blow, with five of them kidnapped by Nusra Front Aug. 4.

The deal drawn up by Washington and Ankara allowing U.S. forces to operate out of the Incirlik Air Base is also aimed at obstructing YPG fighters in Syria from making further advances against Islamic State near Turkey’s border and from strengthening the Kurd’s fight toward an independent state. The deal involves creating a buffer zone 55 miles wide and 25 miles deep in northern Syria where Islamic State combatants will be driven out but Kurdish forces will not be allowed in.

In recent months, the YPG has forced Islamic State fighters out of 2,000 square miles of territory in northern Syria.

Erdogan had declared that he would prevent the establishment of a Kurdish state in this area “no matter what it costs.” As part of his regime’s provocative actions aimed at the Kurds in Syria, the Turkish military has placed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles on the border by Syria’s Kurdish-controlled Hasakah province.
 
 
Related articles:
Protests: ‘Stop US-Turkish assault on Kurdish people!’
 
 
 
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