The PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) Committee for External Relations has issued a statement on the dramatic situation at the EU external border in Belarus. Pointing to the government of South Kurdistan and the Turkish state as the cause of the tragedy taking place, the PKK committee said that more than 30,000 people have left South Kurdistan within a year. According to the committee, this migration movement is a warning signal and will affect the future of the Kurdish people.

Mentioning two main reasons for the flight from South Kurdistan, the PKK statement said the following:

"Firstly, our people in South Kurdistan have waged a great struggle for justice, democracy, equality, freedom and love for their land. This resistance reached a peak with the Raperîn uprisings in 1991 and the southern part of our country was given official status. However, because justice, democracy and freedom of expression are still lacking years later, and problems such as unemployment and economic crisis prevail instead, a great hopelessness has arisen that anything will change in the situation. People look to the future with concern, and so a migration movement of young and old people, including women and children, has been set in motion.

Secondly, South Kurdistan is being occupied by the Turkish state, with the help of those who have sold the soil of the south to Turkey, so to speak. Radical jihadist groups are being settled. Along with this, mafiosi, agents and traffickers are promoting the escape route. Young people in particular are influenced by this. This method is intended to change the demographic structure of southern Kurdistan via occupation and emigration. The country is wanted to be deprived of its Kurdish identity, and to be turned into an expansion area for fascist Turkish nationalism and radical Islam ideology. This is a planned and programmed special war method with the aim of changing the population structure and depopulating Kurdistan."

The PKK appealed to the people and especially the youth not to leave their country and to use their strength in the struggle for justice, democracy and freedom. The statement added: "In the same way, we call on the forces in South Kurdistan to understand that migration is a result of the policies they pursue. Ways and methods must be found immediately to help and protect the Kurds affected at the border. The KDP government, as primarily responsible, must take the necessary steps and not shift its responsibility to others. Free, safe and dignified living conditions must be created for all the people, and the reasons for the flight movements must be eliminated."