Kurds rally in Cologne against Turkey action in Syria
Thousands of Kurds have staged a rally in western Germany to condemn Turkey’s military intervention in Syria’s Kurdish-dominated northeast.
Police in the city of Cologne said about 1,000 officers had been deployed Saturday to monitor the demonstration, which the organizers said was meant to protest against Turkey’s increasing hostility toward the Kurds.
The protesters carried images of Abdullah Ocalan, a militia leader who has been in prison since 1999, calling on the Turkish government to recognize him as a legitimate partner in negotiations that could restore peace to troubled areas in southeastern Turkey.
For more than a year, Turkey has been carrying out a massive cross-border crackdown on militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is run by Ocalan. The government claims the military operation in Kurdish-dominated southeast has killed thousands of PKK militants. Rights groups and pro-Kurdish political parties say most of those killed have been civilians.
Further to the anger of Kurds, Turkey’s army units entered the Syrian territory last month to launch an operation against the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, although reports have suggested that the attacks are mostly targeting the Syrian Kurdish fighters of the People's Protection Units (YPG).
About 30,000 people turned out at the Saturday protest in Cologne. The demonstration was held at the site where nearly 40,000 people protested a month ago to support Ankara’s actions following an abortive coup in mid-July.
No significant trouble was reported during the pro-Kurdish rally while police said pictures of Ocalan were allowed but demonstrators were not allowed to show symbols of the PKK.
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