Terrorist PKK followers continue to target Turks across EU cities
by Daily Sabah with Agencies
ISTANBULNov 08, 2016 - 12:00 am GMT+3
by Daily Sabah with Agencies
Nov 08, 2016 12:00 am
Supporters of the PKK terrorist group targeted Turkish officials in Germany over the weekend, including a Turkish mosque and cultural center in multiple violent attacks across cities in Europe.
Adding to the recent wave of PKK violence, suspected PKK terrorists set a vehicle belonging to Turkey's consulate general on fire in the German city of Hanover on Sunday, a Turkish diplomatic source said. According to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, the suspected arson attack had left the car gutted.
On Saturday, a group of PKK supporters gathered in front of the office of the Turkish Consulate General in a demonstration against the violence.
Meanwhile, the Turkish consulate in the French city of Nantes was attacked Saturday night when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the building, a source from the consulate told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Sunday. The building was damaged in the attack and the French police have launched a manhunt to find the perpetrators.
While the investigation is still ongoing, French media outlets have reported that numerous pro-PKK rallies have been organized across France, including the cities of Nantes, Rennes, Marseille and Paris in recent weeks.
European officials in countries across Europe have tolerated the spreading of PKK propaganda via rallies and meetings, as well as their financial activities, largely because the PKK touts itself as promoting the rights of Kurdish people.
Despite having declared the PKK an official terrorist organization, the EU's indifference towards the terrorist activities of the PKK in EU member-states is widely criticized by Turkey, with Ankara arguing that the PKK activity being permitted in the countries directly contradicts the EU's official stance on the terrorist organization. The terrorist organization is also recognized as a terror organization by the U.S. and other NATO allies.
Also on Sunday, a group of unidentified attackers threw stones at a mosque and a Turkish cultural center in Stockholm, an official at the center told AA.
The Rinkeby Mosque and its affiliated Turkish Culture Center came under attack in the early hours of Sunday, according to an official who spoke under the condition of anonymity due to security concerns. No one was reportedly in the building at the time of the attack and while the vandalizers broke windows on the building, no injuries were reported.
The incident occurred one day after a Turkish union postponed the opening of its office in the Swedish city of Goteborg after receiving death threats from a group of pro-PKK protesters. Another pro-PKK group attacked a local Turkish cafe owner Cengiz Cura's establishment with Molotov cocktails in the city of Essen in Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia region late Friday, according to reports on Sunday.
The attack comes after major developments in Turkey surrounding the detentions of pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputies which were shortly followed by a terrorist car-bomb attack in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır and the ensuing statements by Turkish politicians criticizing Germany and Europe for failing to condemn the terrorist groups in Turkey.
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