HDP condemns Turkish airstrikes on Shengal

The HDP underlined that the AKP is trying to hide the real causes of the crisis by carrying out war policies.

The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Central Executive Board made a written statement on Thursday on the Turkish state's airstrikes on Shengal.

"The AKP government maintains all its policies to cover the ongoing crisis. In fact it is insisting on one of the causes of the crisis, the war and violence politics, in the hope to annihilate the opposition by raising nationalism and xenophobia”.

The statement added: “The last attack against the Yazidi society took place on 15 August. Turkish warplanes attacked the village of Kocho, one of the scenes worst hit by the DAESH massacre in 2014”.

The HDP underlined that “there is no legitimate and justifiable reason for the assault carried out by Turkish warplanes on the anniversary of the 2014 massacre. 

The AKP - said the statement - is carrying out the same policies carried out in the ‘90s against Kurds in North Kurdistan, when thousands were forced to leave their houses”. 

The statement recalled that the Turkish state never accepted the fact that Kurds rebuilt a new life in Makhmur camp, implementing there the new form of governance Turkey has tried to destroy all along.

The HDP also pointed out that “the new attack on Shengal was carried out after talks between Turkey and “the Iraqi government, which proves that the anti-Kurdish and pro-status quo alliance in the Middle East is continuing. In fact the attempt is to hide the real reasons of the crisis with war policies”.

Reminding that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu opposed the attack on the city of Idlib, where al-Nusra and DAESH mercenaries relocated, telling Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, that ‘the attack will mean a massacre of civilians’, the HDP statement added: “Such a 'humanitarian sensitivity' towards civilians has immediately disappeared when it comes to avoid massacre of Kurds, Yazidis, Alevis and other ethnic groups”.

About 90,000 civilians live in Shengal, said the HDP, and there was no problem for Turkey in bombing them on the anniversary of the Kocho massacre.

“The people of Shengal are returning to their cities and villages to try and rebuild their lives”.

The statement ended with the strongest condemnation of the attacks on Shengal. “We like to underline once more that war far from solving problems, only increases and deepens them further”.