Hands off Kobanê! For Peace in the Middle East, for Freedom to all Oppressed Peoples and Faiths!

Workers, toilers, brothers and sisters!

The demonstrations to show solidarity with the Kurdish people that have been left to its fate and condemn the insidious attitude of the AKP government have spread across Turkey. The anger poured into the streets across Turkey, notably in Kurdish provinces. More than 40 people lost their lives during the protests. While the police opened fire on the masses directly, the civil gangs organised by the AKP accompanied the police. As the police terror on Kurdish people and Turkish workers and toilers who are in solidarity with them was going on, the AKP government declared a curfew for two days in Kurdish cities like Diyarbakır, Van, Batman, Siirt, Muş and Mardin. The AKP government seeks to suppress the rightful revolt of the Kurdish people.

The AKP government is responsible for the violent clashes spread across the whole country and the deaths. For five weeks the bloody and inhuman organisation called ISIS has been attacking Kobanê, a canton of Rojava where predominantly Kurdish people live. This bunch of criminals has many high-tech tanks and weapons seized from the Iraqi army. While Kobanê -geographically isolated from other cantons of Rojava- was surrounded completely, tens of thousands of people left their homes and came to Turkey forlornly. Tens of thousands of peoples are still under attacks of ISIS. It was clear that the Kurdish people from Turkey would not stay silent while their brothers and relatives on the other side of the border were under threat of slaughter. Kurdish people in Turkey flooded to the border for solidarity. Rejecting to open a humanitarian corridor to Kobanê Turkey sent the police and soldiers on people who were in the border town for solidarity. The threat of ISIS slaughter that Kobanê people faced and the state terror of the AKP led the Kurdish people to a riot. Minister of internal affairs, Efkan Alâ, who could not put up with the justified anger of the Kurdish people stated that the demonstrations would be responded tit for tat. Short after this statement the police began to kill Kurdish people one after another.

Brothers and sisters!

The AKP government does not care about Kobanê and the Kurdish people. The demagogies of AKP’s spokesmen are only to stall Kurdish people. In actual fact AKP desires Kobanê to fall. Hence president Erdogan simply declared his wish by saying “Kobanê is about to fall.” AKP does not want the Kurdish people to have their own government in Rojava. Thus the spokesmen of AKP make statements of all sorts of excuses while a danger of ISIS massacre is the case in point. These statements reveal that ISIS is favoured against the Kurdish people. It should not be forgotten that the AKP government was one of the leading powers which let ISIS became calamity for the peoples of the Middle East. The AKP government says that “we do not have designs on the lands of other countries,” on one hand, and on the other hand it arms and mobilises the radical Islamist organisations. ISIS is one of these organisations. The AKP government went on to support ISIS till the USA and European countries applied pressure on Turkey. It was no-one other than the Prime Minister Davutoglu called this bloody organisation “angry youngsters.”

It is completely double dealing to talk about “peace” and the “solution process” and to fire bullets on the Kurdish people at the same time. It is very clear that peace will not be brought by this way. AKP’s concern is not peace and freedom of peoples but to make gains from the scramble for division of the Middle East at any cost. That is why they said “our priority is the fall of Assad regime, if needed, we will launch ground operation” while Kobanê is under siege and the Kurdish people is in danger of being slaughtered. Workers and toilers in Turkey should be alert about AKP’s ambition of “becoming a great country in the Middle East.” It is an imperialist ambition and the workers and toilers will be its victims. Kurdish and Turkish workers should take a joint position against provocations and war plans of the AKP. Turkish workers should take action for common struggle in awareness of the feelings of the suffering Kurdish people and not be carried away by chauvinist provocations.

The war is ravaging the whole of the Middle East. Notably the US and European imperialism; Russia, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran are responsible for the war in the Middle East. The period that started with the invasion of Iraq transformed the Middle East into a deadlock hell of war. ISIS and other radical Islamist organisations are the fruits of this hell. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the USA, Russia, China and European imperialists make use of ISIS and other Islamist organisations for their own interests.

The USA and other imperialist powers that brought the scourge of war to the Middle East are now, when bloody-minded ISIS began to slaughter the Kurdish people, pretending to be the saviours. They are to blame for the war but they are “the saviours” as well! We should stop this game! No-one knows when this war will end. Herein lies the gist of the USA spokesperson’s statements: “The war against ISIS will continue for 40 years.” The aim of the war is a re-division of the Middle East. This is the war of taking control over energy sources and markets in the Middle East.

It is only the working class that can stop this war as it has no benefit in the capitalist system of exploitation and unjust wars. All workers of the Middle Eastern countries should gather together as the parts of the same class, unite, strengthen the bonds of brotherhood, fight sectarian provocations, nationalist belligerence and exploitation. This fight should aim to overthrow capitalism that is responsible for wars. Overthrowing capitalism and establishing its own power, the working class of the Middle East will be able to open the doors of a socialist world in which there is no war, exploitation, nationalist and sectarian discrimination.