Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) on Saturday urged an immediate end to what it called a military and humanitarian siege of Kobane, a Kurdish-majority city in northern Syria, warning of a “humanitarian tragedy” after a week of Syrian military operations in the area.
The DEM Party said the situation in Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, had escalated into a “deadly catastrophe” after the party sent a delegation to visit northeastern Syria. The city is bordered by Turkey to the north and surrounded by Syrian government forces.
“Both the military and humanitarian siege of Kobane must be lifted as soon as possible,” DEM Party Co-chair Tülay Hatimoğulları said at a news conference.
Hatimoğulları said residents from surrounding villages had fled to Kobane as the Syrian offensive advanced and were now stranded inside the city.
“When we went, the snow was knee-deep. Electricity has been cut off, the internet is cut off, water is cut off. This is a great humanitarian tragedy,” she said.
The DEM Party said access to fuel and heating had been cut off and claimed four children had died from freezing temperatures on Saturday because of extreme cold and a lack of shelter.
It also said pharmacies were empty and that there were shortages of flour, food and medicine, with hunger spreading in the city.
Hatimoğulları urged what she called the “guarantor countries” to act to lift the blockade in northeastern Syria, referring to the United States and Western allies that have backed the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State group.
SDF forces have withdrawn from areas near Kobane over the past week under pressure from Syria’s military as President Ahmed al-Sharaa seeks to extend government control across the country.
Damascus has demanded that the SDF disband, and Washington has signaled that its partnership with the force has served its purpose.
Kobane carries symbolic weight for Kurds because it was overrun by Islamic State militants in 2014 and later retaken in January 2015 by the US-backed SDF. The SDF later spearheaded the campaign that drove the Islamic State group out of its last strongholds in Syria in 2019.
Turkey has long viewed the SDF as linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies. Ankara has backed Damascus’s current offensive, prompting anger among DEM Party supporters and parts of Turkey’s Kurdish community.
Clashes broke out in İstanbul as riot police blocked about 300 people from staging a protest against the Syrian offensive, an Agence France-Presse correspondent reported. Police fired pepper spray and riot projectiles to disperse the crowd.
Local media reported that a DEM Party lawmaker was injured and taken to a hospital. Police made arrests, but the number of detainees was not immediately known.
Earlier Saturday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan praised the Syrian offensive against the SDF.
“Terrorist organizations are being pushed out of those regions by the Syrian army,” Erdoğan said. “All these sources of trouble for our country are being resolved.”
“When this separatist terrorist organization is tackled once and for all in northern Syria, the whole region will benefit from it,” he added.
© Agence France-Presse