Belgium urges calm after clashes between Turks, Kurds

BRUSSELS (AFP): Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo called for calm on Wednesday after escalating tensions between Turkish and Kurdish groups in the country just days before local elections in Turkey.

“We are asking everyone to calm down, stop the provocations and continue living together (in harmony) as we have done for decades in our country,” De Croo said.

“Let’s stop… these demonstrations of support for organisations classified as terrorist,” he told reporters, referring to the Kurdish PKK group.

There have been a series of clashes between Turks and Kurds in eastern Belgium including riots on Sunday, with subsequent tit-for-tat claims.

The Turkish foreign ministry blamed outlawed “PKK militants” from Leuven for Sunday’s clashes in Limburg. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies including Belgium.

But NavBel, the council representing Kurdish groups in Belgium, said a Syrian Kurdish family suffered a “brutal attack” by Turkey’s Grey Wolves, an ultra-nationalist organisation.

Then in an incident believed to be an anti-Turk attack, a cafe in Vise, near Liege, was targeted overnight between Monday and Tuesday by individuals armed with baseball bats that left several people hurt.

The public prosecutor’s offices in Limburg and Liege confirmed to AFP they were investigating the violent incidents but would not provide more information.

Tensions rose again after a protest on Monday in front of the European Parliament in Brussels by Kurdish groups in response to the riots at the weekend.

The demonstration descended into violence and the police used water cannon to disperse around 200 protesters, who had held images of jailed Kurdish PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke to his Belgian counterpart Hadja Lahbib on Sunday night after the clashes, his ministry said this week.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to one of those injured, a 16-year-old boy of Turkish origin, by telephone in a video shared by the presidency on Tuesday evening.

De Croo said Belgium was “following this closely because there are other key moments in the coming days”, referring to local elections in Turkey on March 31.