The Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) has issued a press release in response to Turkey’s renewed attacks on northern Syria and northern Iraq on 20 November, summarised below.
At midnight on 20 November Turkish warplanes began bombing, targeting hospitals, schools and other civilian targets, in and around the cities of Kobanê and Dêrik in North and East Syria (Rojava), and a wheat depot in Zirgan and the mountain regions of Qandil and Asos in northern Iraq (South Kurdistan).
The Istanbul bombing on 13 November was a false flag operation by Turkey’s ruling AKP-MHP (Justice and Development Party / National Movement Party) as a pretext for these bombing raids. Straight after the Istanbul bombing, the Turkish regime blamed Kurdish forces. Despite the immediate and vehement rejection of this accusation by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syrian Democratic Forces, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu continues to push this lie.Erdoğan’s regime can only retain power by defeating the Kurdish people. He used the Istanbul bombing to present Turkey as a victim of ‘Kurdish terrorism’ at the G20 summit in Bali, in order to obtain a green light to attack Rojava, which he cannot do without the approval of the US and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.
The Turkish state is yet again launching an unprovoked campaign of aggression against the Kurds to distract from its problems after two decades of rule by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP. Since 17 April, the Erdoğan regime has repeatedly attacked positions of Kurdish guerrilla fighters in South Kurdistan, using banned chemical weapons more than 2,700 times. But they have achieved nothing, and Turkish forces have burned the bodies of their own soldiers to hide their losses. Erdoğan and his ruling coalition are using the Istanbul bombing to distract from their defeat in South Kurdistan and to justify further war against the Kurds in Rojava.
