German police broke up a protest rally of more than 20,000 Kurdish immigrants after participants refused to take down flags and symbols of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party, German news agency dpa reported Saturday. The demonstrators had come to the western city of Cologne from all over Germany to protest Turkey's recent military operation in a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria. The Kurdistan Workers' Party, also known by its Kurdish acronym PKK, is regarded as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies. Clashes between Kurdish and Turkish immigrants who back the Syrian military operation ordered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not materialize, as Cologne police had feared. Several thousand people in Paris also protested the Turkish operation Saturday.

Source: ABC News January 27, 2018 16:32 UTC