The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has released a statement voicing increasing concerns at developments in Kobanê town of West Kurdistan, Rojava, under attack by Islamic State terrorists.

The Confederation called on the international community and European states, including Turkey, to act urgently to prevent the mass murder being perpetrated by these brutal thugs not only against Kurds but against people of all faiths and throughout swathes of Syria and Iraq. Their violent treatment of women is particularly abhorrent, it underlined.

The ETUC also drew attention to the view of their affiliate in Turkey, the Confederation of Public Employees’ Trade Unions (KESK), that the process for a democratic solution of the Kurdish matter is being brought into question. Remarking that rising tensions in Turkey itself, including a mounting death toll, are a further component of destabilization in the region, the ETUC emphasised that IS terrorists must not be offered that sustenance.