ANKARA, October 8 (RIA Novosti) - At least 19 people have been killed in pro-Kurdish demonstrations across Turkey, Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at a press conference in Ankara Wednesday.
Davutoglu stated that 19 people have been killed, 145 were wounded and in hospital, and 368 have been detained as a result of the ongoing protests in the country.
Demonstrations in support of the Kurdish population of Kobani, a town on the border between Syria and Turkey, currently fighting the Islamic State (IS), began Monday. Several hundred protesters have taken to the streets in Istanbul and the country's southeastern provinces to demonstrate their disapproval of Turkey's non-interference policy in respect of the developments in Kobani.
The prime minister called the protests acts of vandalism and organized crime.
IS tanks and artillery entered Kobani Monday evening, engaging in street battles with the local Kurdish population. Islamic State militants have laid seige to Kobani for the last three weeks, causing almost 180,000 people to flee to neighboring Turkey and killing more than 170 Kurdish fighters and at least 20 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. According to latest reports on the issue, the Islamic State militants have started retreating.
The Islamic State is a Sunni jihadi group that has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In June 2014, it launched an offensive in Iraq, seizing vast areas in both countries and announcing the establishment of an Islamic caliphate on the territories under its control.
Kurds are one of the ethnic groups in Iraq and Syria that have suffered greatly from IS violence.
