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Turks, Kurds stage rallies in Germany
4.11.2007
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November
4, 2007
BERLIN, -- More than 12,000 Kurds and Turks
staged peaceful rallies across Germany on Saturday
to protest rising tensions between the Turkish army
and Turkey's Kurdish PKK separatists on Turkey's
border with Iraqi Kurdistan region, police said.
The biggest gathering took place in Nuremberg,
southern Germany, where 7,000 people turned out at
the event organised by a Turkish association.
Ankara has threatened military action against the
Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Kurdistan
'northern Iraq', which the group uses as a base to
launch attacks across the border in southeastern
Turkey.
Turkish authorities accuse the Iraqi Kurdish
leadership of harbouring and aiding the separatist
PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much
of the international community, including Germany.
Kurdish authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan region
strongly reject the claim of aiding PKK. www.ekurd.net
In Hamburg, hundreds of police flanked some 1,850
protesters as they marched towards the Turkish
consulate. The police seized some PKK flags from the
marchers.
More than 2,000 people marched in Stuttgart and
Dortmund to demonstrate their backing for the Kurds,
while in the southwestern city of Mannheim, Turkish
organisers got 800 people to walk through the
streets.
Last weekend, violence escalated in Germany between
Kurds and Turks, especially in Berlin, on the
margins of a rally called in support of Anakara's
stance. Fourteen people were arrested and 18 police
injured.
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble
meanwhile told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that
Germany "will not tolerate violence."
Watchful of toughening tensions between Turks and
Kurds in Germany, Schaeuble said "security services
have to take their responsibility very seriously."
According to the German Office for the Protection of
the Constitution, the PKK has some 11,500 members in
the country, while the nationalist Turkish extreme
right comprises more than 7,500 members.
Some 2.4 million people of Turkish origin live in
Germany, including 600,000 Kurds.
Iraqi Kurdish politician says, Turkey is using
Turkey's Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an
excuse to invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent
the establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq', Turkey fears
this could fan separatism among its own large
Kurdish population in southeast Turkey. Turkey is
home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds.
AFP
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