Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Sunday that France has «fed» the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as part of protests following Friday’s attack on a Kurdish center in Paris, which left three dead and several wounded.
«The snake fed by the French began to bite (its tail). Everyone should now see the true face of this terrorist organization,» he has expressed, adding that it is «problematic to help and support terrorists,» according to a Defense Ministry statement.
A man in his 70s opened fire Friday at a Kurdish cultural center in Paris, killing three people and wounding three others. The Gallic authorities soon came out in the wake of what happened to show their total rejection in what the president himself, Emmanuel Macron, defined as a «hateful» attack against the Kurds in France.
On Saturday hundreds of people protested in the Republic Square in the capital of France, Paris, in rejection of the shooting perpetrated by the man, who has admitted this Sunday a «pathological hatred» of foreigners.
Although the rally was peaceful, clashes broke out in the vicinity of the Place de la République between demonstrators and police officers after 1 p.m., resulting in 31 injured officers and at least eleven arrests.
According to the BFMTV channel, some demonstrators attacked security officers with small projectiles and even threw street furniture. The police, for their part, responded with tear gas.
The tension of some demonstrators with the police was not shared by the demonstrators as a whole, who even went so far as to interpose themselves between them, forming a human chain that also included members of the Kurdish Democratic Council.
Following this episode of violence, the organizers of the demonstration decided to end the rally earlier than planned. The march was due to proceed towards the Bastille, where clashes broke out.
The Kurdish Democratic Council denounced that tempers flared when a group of «provocateurs» passed by the demonstration in a car, showing the Turkish flag through the windows and making the Grey Wolves gesture.
Grey Wolves is an ultra-nationalist Turkish racist organization and extremely hostile to the Kurdish community. The Gallic authorities ordered in 2020 its dissolution by considering it an extreme right-wing organization. Its supporters make a hand gesture by raising the index and little fingers and putting the rest of the fingers together.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
