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Turkish protests over IS in Kobane turn violent

07 October 2014 18:13 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Thousands of Kurdish people have flocked into the streets across Turkey since Monday evening to protest against the Islamic State's (IS) advance into the Kurdish town of Kobane in northern Syria, which turned violent in some provinces, APA report quoting Xinhua.

The police have shot dead a person in the southeastern province of Mus, while in Istanbul another was injured on Tuesday. In separate demonstrations in the eastern provinces eight more people were also injured.

Istanbul has witnessed large protests since Monday evening, as thousands of people poured into the streets. Police used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd, as the protesters retaliated with fireworks and petrol bombs. The city has raised the alarm level and cancelled all holiday permission for the police forces.

The Pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party issued an urgent appeal in the late evening hours on Monday, appealing all the people in Turkey to hold demonstrations against IS' massacre attempt in Kobane.

"The Kurdish people is at the breaking point of their history of struggle. The IS wants to have a massacre in Kobane with the support of Turkey and international powers," the statement said.

During the protests the Kurds also blamed Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party for its inactivity over the IS assaults in Kobane, claiming that the government has been supporting IS militants.

IS militants captured three neighborhoods in the predominantly Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria on Monday, and hundreds of Kurdish people have fled Kobane toward the Turkish borders, according to Syria's oppositional Observatory for Human Rights.

Kobane, also known as Ayn al-Arab, has been subject to ferocious attacks by IS militants over the past two weeks. IS fighters have succeeded in capturing hundreds of Kurdish villages around Kobane, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee.

Kurdish activists accused Turkey of working with the IS to empty the city of its residents so that it could impose a buffer zone on the Syrian side of the borders under the pretext of helping the refugees.