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TUC calls for action on Kobane

Issue date

Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP
Secretary of State
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London SW1A 2AH

Dear Philip

Kobane

The General Council and Executive Committee of the TUC have met recently and reflected on the struggle around the city of Kobane. Taking our lead from our colleagues in trade unions from Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey, we would urge the British government to do a number of things, on which I would welcome your response:

  • we believe that the British government should put further pressure on the Turkish government to do more to support the fighters and people remaining in Kobane, in particular by relaxing border controls on refugees, and on the provision of food, medical supplies and military support (I will be registering this point also with the Turkish Embassy);
  • we believe that the British, Turkish and other governments should do more to provide for refugees, including taking more refugees and providing further aid funding to support them - especially, in line with the calls of teacher unions in the affected regions to provide education for the children displaced both as refugees and, in Iraqi Kurdistan, by the arrival of refugees; and
  • we believe that, in the longer term, the British government needs to urge the new government in Iraq to adopt a more inclusive approach based on human rights and including the restoration of full trade union rights given the role that unions can play in bringing working people and communities together across ethnic, cultural and sectarian divides.

I look forward to your response, and would be happy to put your officials in contact with trade unions in the region who can advise further on the detail of many of these points.

I am copying this letter to the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development in view of the points made on refugees and overseas aid.

Yours sincerely

FRANCES O’GRADY

General Secretary

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