ANKARA
Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MP Hasip Kaplan has called for the Turkish government to make a clear stand on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.
Referring to ISIL's massacre in the heavily Kurdish populated north and west of Iraq, Kaplan said, "Today is not the day to remain slient," and added, "I call for the prime minister to issue a statement on the recent incidents (in northern Iraq)."
The militant group, which now calls itself the Islamic State, has seized large areas of northern and western Iraq in an offensive that began in June.
ISIL, which controls parts of Syria, quickly captured a vast amount of territory straddling the border between Iraq and Syria. In June, its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared the establishment of an Islamic state, or caliphate, in the land the extremists control.
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