Turkey treated 523 PYD members from Kobane, paid 1 bln Turkish Liras for people fleeing the city

Fevzi Kızılkoyun ANKARA

AFP Photo

While 523 Democratic Union Party (PYD) members fighting in Kobane against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were treated in Turkey, the total cost of the clashes in Kobane for Turkey was around 1 billion Turkish Liras.

The treated members of the PYD include senior level managers and 65 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Kurdish forces recaptured Kobane, which is located on the Syrian side of the Turkey-Syria border, from ISIL militants on Jan. 26 after fighting for more than four months since the initial attack in September 2014. The air support of the U.S.-led coalition forces and peshmerga crossing to Kobane through Turkey were also effective in this victory.

About 3,000 Turkish citizens passed the border to fight in Kobane with the PYD, while seven Turkish citizens lost their lives in the clashes.

Around 200,000 people from Kobane fled and came to Turkey during the 134 days of clashes, while Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) opened its biggest refugee camp on Jan. 25, in the southeastern border town of Suruç to house 35,000 of these people. Turkey has spent around 1 billion liras for maintaining the needs of the people fleeing Kobane.

Some 500,000 entrances and exit were made in the Mürşitpınar boarder gate, which is the closest gate to reach Kobane, in the past five months.

While 523 PYD members were treated in hospitals in the Şanlıurfa province and Suruç district, a number of these people included high-level PYD members.

Some 65 PKK members, whose activities are outlawed in Turkey, went to fight on the PYD front against ISIL, were also brought and treated in Turkey. The PKK members who had criminal records were treated under the surveillance of Turkish security forces and were detained in accordance with the charges against them.

Among those PKK members who were treated in Turkey were “Sofi” codenamed Selahattin Dilek, the alleged PKK member responsible for the Diyarbakır province after being wounded in Kobane. He was later arrested.

Meanwhile, some 52 mortar bombs, rocket launchers and missiles landed on Turkish soil during the clashes, Doğan News Agency reported. Hundreds of bullets also hit private houses and workplaces located on the border with Syria.

Some 31 mortar bombs exploded after hitting the ground, especially in the Mürşitpınar and Yumurtalık districts of Şanlıurfa, while 21 of them were detonated by bomb squads.