GERMAN police broke up a tens of thousands-strong pro-Kurdish rally in Cologne yesterday after participants refused to take down flags and symbols of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Demonstrators came to the city from all over Germany to protest against Turkey’s invasion of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria.

“The protest march has been stopped in order to remove all forbidden banners,” the North Rhine-Westphalia state police tweeted.