| Submit your comments on this article |
| The Grand Turk |
| HDP deputy claims Turkey handed over YPG fighters to al-Nusra-allied group |
| 2015-08-11 |
| [Hurriyet Daily News] A member of parliament has claimed that ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... has handed over six fighters of the People's Protection Units (YPG), the military wing of Syria's Democratic Union Party (PYD), blaming the government for committing a war crime. "The undersecretary of the Interior Ministry has openly confessed to us that these six maimed YPG members were handed to the front organization of al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... and gangs close to them," Idris Baluken, the deputy parliamentary group chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), told news hounds at a presser on Aug. 10. Approached by Hurriyet Daily News for further clarification, Baluken said the undersecretary told him last week that the six YPG members were "deported." "When somebody is deported, it means handed over to border gate authorities. In this case, it took place at Cilvegözu and everybody knows very well under whose control that place is," Baluken said, referring to news reports that Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... controlled the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, opposite Turkey's Cilvegözu border entrance. Baluken said the undersecretary told him that he was unaware of identities and affiliation of the administrators at Bab al-Hawa. Six YPG members were detained on July 25 during a police raid on a guesthouse in Ankara owned by the Education and Science Workers' Union (Egitim-Sen). Soon after their detention, they were handed over to Ahrar al-Sham, Baluken said, underlining that despite intense efforts by both HDP deputies and lawyers, they were not able to obtain even a single official paper or document concerning their detention, which ended with acquittal. The office of the undersecretary of the Interior Ministry was not yet available for comment when Hurriyet Daily News went to press. |
| Posted by:Fred |