BRUSSELS (Armenpress)–Over 100 youth of Turkish origin were arrested on Wednesday night in Brussels after clashing with Belgian police during a banned anti-Kurdish demonstration, news agencies reported citing a local authority spokesman.
Pierre Bruylandt, a spokesman for the mayor of Saint Josse-ten-Noode, where the violence took place, said the youths were detained after destroying cars, bus stops and garbage bins.
A number of the youths were armed with metal rods and had concealed their faces with hoods and scarves, Bruylandt said, adding he had witnessed the violence himself.
"They demonstrated following the clashes at the Turkish-Iraqi border," said Bruylandt. He said the demonstrators had no permit to hold the protest.
Saint Josse-ten-Noode is a district of Brussels, which is home to a large Turkish community.
This past week, Turkish youth also burned the flag of the U.S. embassy in Brussels and demolished a local Armenian cafe in Saint Josse-ten-Noode causing the Armenian owner to flee for his life. Police only watched.
This outburst of Turkish violence comes after the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. congress voted to adopt a resolution recognizing the 1915 massacre of Armenia’s by Ottoman Turks as genocide. Tensions have also been running high in some immigrant Turkish communities in Belgium after the death of 12 Turkish soldiers earlier this month in an attach by Kurds based out of northern Iraq.
Turkey’s parliament has authorized the military to carry out a major cross-border incursion against Kurdish militants after the surge in guerrilla attacks on Turkish soil.
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