Bodies of 13 slain YPG fighters allowed entry to Turkey

The bodies of 13 members of the Syria-based Kurdish People's Protection Unit (YPG) killed in clashes with the Islamic State group were allowed to enter into Turkey on Tuesday, according to a Turkish media report.

Ferhat Encu, the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy in Sirnak province, told Daily Zaman that the bodies crossed the Halil Ibrahim border late Tuesday.

A rights group told MEE last week that the bodies had been sitting in an air-conditioned container at the Turkey-Syria border after the Turkish government refused their entry.

“[The fighters' families] first asked the Sirnak [province] governor and he said that he did not have the authority to let them and that the government in Ankara should let them,” Raci Bilici, chair of the Diyarbakir branch of Turkish Human Rights Association, told MEE. 

MEE asked Sirnak's provincial governor to comment last week and was told that he would not be able to comment until this Monday, but have not yet had a reply. 

Among the dead 22-year-old Kevin Jochim from Germany who travelled to fight with the YPG and was reportedly killed on 6 July in the Syrian town of Tal Abyad.

Families of the fighters had petitioned the UN, the EU and the German state to investigate the situation, Bilici said.

Though the YPG and its political wing the Democratic Union Party (PYD) have a different leadership to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated that the Turkish government regards the two groups as "equal".

The rising tensions between the Turkish government and the PKK following the 20 July suicide bombing in Suruc mean the YPG has come under greater scrutiny. 

The YPG accused the Turkish military of firing mortar shells on Kurdish-controlled village near the border with Syria.

Turkish officials, who have been conducting air raids in Syria against IS, said they were responding to fire from across the border.