After 2005, when sectarian strife started to slowly rip apart Iraq, the plight of Turkmens has been the most ignored tragedy — even in Turkey. With the Islamic State (IS) taking control of Mosul and Tal Afar early June, Turkmens are once again left without support to face their own destiny.
It was Turkey’s presidential hopeful Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu who reminded the Turks on July 21 that as they cry their hearts out for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, they should also remember their ethnic brothers, the Turkmens, in Iraq. “Iraqi Turkmen leaders came to visit me [July 20], and told me such horrifying stories. They talked about a Turkmen girl of 13 [or] 14 years old being gang-raped [by IS members] while being filmed, and then she was hung to death from an electric pole. They told me stories about the kind of violence the Turkmens face,” Ihsanoglu said. “They are there with no water or food. They have no place to sleep. Yet, there is no word here in Turkey about them, and we keep talking only about Gaza.”
Sinan Ogan, a Nationalist Action Party (MHP) deputy for Igdir, also brought up this issue during his address in parliament on July 22. Questioning why the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has grown so indifferent to the Turkmens’ suffering in Iraq, Ogan asked, “Did we not have the will or the money to accept 5,000-10,000 Turkmens? Why does this government find it so difficult to take care of our own brothers?” he said, deliberately raising the question why the government has not opened the borders to the Turkmens.
Kasim Kara, a local spokesman for the Iraqi Turkmen Front, echoed the same sentiment during a telephone interview with Al-Monitor from Sincar, Iraq, roughly 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Turkish border. “We requested entry to Turkey through Turkey’s consulate in Erbil. We also talked to Ersat Hurmuzlu, President [Abdullah] Gul’s [chief Middle East] adviser. But they never came back to us with either a positive or a negative answer.” He added, “I can go to Turkey anytime I want, but many here don’t have their proper paperwork. Turkey did not allow them in, and we wonder here, while suffering under the desert temperatures with no water or food, how Turkey can accept all the Syrians and not us; how Turkey can cry for Palestinians in Gaza, or [those in] Rabia in Egypt, but not us. Turkey left us alone here.” Kara also stressed that they are not really that far away from the border.
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