Turkey blocks aid convoy to Syria's Kobane: NGOs

ANKARA, Turkey: Turkish authorities have blocked a convoy carrying aid to Kobane, a predominantly Kurdish town in northern Syria encircled by the Syrian army, NGOs and a Turkish MP said on Saturday.

They said the aid was blocked before it reached the Turkey-Syria border, despite an agreement announced on Friday between the Syrian government and the country’s Kurdish minority to gradually integrate the Kurds’ military and civilian institutions into the state.

Twenty-five lorries containing water, milk, baby formula and blankets collected in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, “were prevented from crossing the border”, said the Diyarbakir Solidarity and Protection Platform, which organised the aid campaign.

“Blocking humanitarian aid trucks carrying basic necessities is unacceptable, both from the point of view of humanitarian law and from the point of view of moral responsibility,” said the platform, which brings together several NGOs.

Earlier this week, residents of Kobane told AFP they were running out of food, water and electricity because the city was overwhelmed with people fleeing the advance of the Syrian army.

Kurdish forces accused the Syrian army of imposing a siege on Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab in Arabic.

“The trucks are still waiting in a depot on the highway,” said Adalet Kaya, an MP from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM party who was accompanying the convoy.

“We will continue negotiations today. We hope they will be able to cross at the Mursitpinar border post,” he told AFP.

Mursitpinar is located on the Turkish side of the border, across from Kobane.

Turkish authorities have kept the border crossing closed since 2016, while occasionally opening it briefly to allow humanitarian aid to pass through.

DEM and Turkey’s main opposition CHP called this week for Mursitpinar to be opened “to avoid a humanitarian tragedy”.

Turkish authorities said aid convoys should use the Oncupinar border crossing, 180 kilometres (110 miles) away.

“It’s not just a question of distance. We want to be sure the aid reaches Kobane and is not redirected elsewhere by Damascus, which has imposed a siege,” said Kaya.

After months of deadlock and fighting, Damascus and the Syrian Kurds announced an agreement on Friday that would see the forces and administration of Syria’s Kurdish autonomous region gradually integrated into the Syrian state.

Kobane is around 200 kilometres from the Kurds’ stronghold in Syria’s far northeast.

Kurdish forces liberated the city from a lengthy siege by the Islamic State group in 2015 and it took on symbolic value as their first major victory against the jihadists.

Kobane is hemmed in by the Turkish border to the north and government forces on all sides, pending the entry into the force of Friday’s agreement.