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Selahattin Demirtas, the leader of pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party in Turkey, has called for unity in fighting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, which has besieged the Kurdish-populated Syrian town of Kobani for more than a week.
"All people of Turkey should join hands today in order to succeed in stopping the ISIL threat," Demirtas said on Tuesday in a press conference in the Suruc district, in the southeastern Turkish province of Sanliurfa.
Following a visit to Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, Demirtas added that the ISIL group was accelerating its progress in the region.
ISIL militants, who otherwise control large parts of territory in Syria and Iraq, have been attacking the town of Kobani from all directions, causing more than 160,000 people, mostly Syrian Kurds, to cross into Turkey in the past ten days.
Demirtas praised those who had flocked from all corners of Turkey to help out during this crisis.
"There are Arab and Kurdish youth here [Suruc] who reveal a dignified stance in a bid to protect human dignity in Kobani," Demirtas said.
But he criticized the Turkish government for not supporting this resistance more openly.
More than 1.5 million refugees have fled the four-year-old civil war in Syria, into Turkey.
In addition to a humanitarian crisis on the border, fighting between ISIL and Kurdish Peshmerga around Kobani has caused pieces of artillery to fall on the Turkish side of the border.
Turkish tanks have taken up positions facing Syria after mortar rounds fell into Turkish territory, injuring three civilians on Sunday.
www.aa.com.tr/en - Şanlıurfa
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