Sputniknews — Around a dozen masked men briefly occupied the German consulate in Heraklion on Friday protesting against Turkey’s ongoing military operation in the Kurdish-held enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, Deutsche Welle reported.
The attackers hung a banner from the building’s balcony with the words “Solidarity with Afrin — Resistance is life” written in Kurdish, German and Greek.
Local news site Cretalive said that the self-styled anarchists used the Consul’s e-mail and fax to send messages to the Turkish embassy in Athens and to the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Consul was not in Iraklio at the time of the attack and is reportedly on her way back
At the same time, police in the German city of Hanover said Saturday that about 15,000 Kurds were expected to march in the city against Turkey’s operation.
The march will begin at 9:00 a.m. local time (08:00 GMT) with two processions departing from different locations and meeting in the city’s center on Opernplatz square.
In January 2018, the Turkish Army launched a military operation, code-named Operation Olive Branch in Afrin against the Kurdish militia in order to “clear” Turkey’s Syrian border of the terrorist threat.
The offensive is against the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD), its armed wing the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions in the area.
Turkey considers the YPG as an ally of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been listed as a terrorist organization by Ankara.
