Turkish Forces Fend Off Kurdish Protesters
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Turkish security forces used tear gas and water cannon to disperse Kurds who had gathered in support of Kurdish refugees fleeing attacks in Syria, and those battling ISIL fighters on Syrian soil.
Hundreds of young demonstrators fought back by hurling rocks and setting up barricades on the road leading to a nearby border crossing, AFP reported. At one point the border was sealed.
The security forces kept demonstrators away from a barbed-wire border fence just 5km from Ain al-Arab, known to the Kurds as Kobane, where Kurdish fighters are battling ISIL.
"We've come to support our brothers in Syria under attack by ISIL," demonstrator Mehmet Eminakma told AFP.
Mehment said that Turkish authorities were preventing young Syrian Kurd refugees from returning to the battlefront.
ISIL fighters have captured dozens of villages along the Syrian borders, threatening the largely-Kurdish inhabitants of the northern Kobane area.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, renewed its call for arms as Kobane came under fierce attack by ISIL for the fourth day in a row. One Kurdish commander said ISIL was within 15km of Kobane.
"Supporting this heroic resistance is not only a debt of honor for the Kurds, but for all of the Middle East people. Just giving support is not enough. ISIL must drown in the blood it spills. The youth of North Kurdistan must flow in waves to Kobani," the party said in a statement.
Ibrahim Binici, a politician for Turkey's pro-Kurdish HDP, told the Reuters news agency that he had been told by locals that ISIL fighters were beheading people as they went from village to village.
"Rather than a war this is a genocide operation," he said.
About 100,000 Syrian Kurds have crossed the border into Turkey over the past few days, fleeing an advance by ISIL, the UN said on Monday.
