Kurdish politician leaves German left-wing party over Russia policy

She is not the first Die Linke member to leave the party over its pro-Russian policies.
German Kurdish politician Helin Evrim Sommer (Photo: Stella von Saldern/Deutscher Bundestag)
German Kurdish politician Helin Evrim Sommer (Photo: Stella von Saldern/Deutscher Bundestag)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The German Kurdish politician and former MP Helin Evrim Sommer has left Die Linke (The Left) party in protest over its pro-Russian politics.

Sommer was a German parliament member for the Linke (between 2017-2021) and lost her seat in the elections in September.

Germany's influential newsweekly Der Spiegel reported that, in a resignation letter, Sommer accused the party of "Soviet nostalgia" and always blaming the West for Russia's aggression in Ukraine. 

"Significant parts of the party publicly reproduce the narrative of the Putin regime and have often enough unilaterally supported the interests of the Kremlin. And even today, parts of the party still give NATO either primary or partial responsibility for Putin's brutal war of aggression against Ukraine, which is beyond reality," she wrote.

On Twitter, she described the left-wing MP Sevim Dagdelen from Die Linke (who is also Kurdish) as the "greatest Putinist of all time."

Furthermore, Sommer was also irritated by her former party's lack of support for Syrian Kurds, as Der Spiegel and Der Tagesspiegel reported in early May. 

Instead, the party supported Russia and the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

"As a German politician of Kurdish origin, I am also extremely disappointed with how the LINKE has dealt with the Kurdish question in Syria," she wrote in her resignation letter, which she shared with Kurdistan 24. 

"Instead of showing solidarity with the Kurds' struggle for freedom in Rojava, parts of the party prefer to support Bashar al-Assad's Syrian terror regime, which has been waging war against its own people for more than 10 years," she added. 

"Such positions are intolerable for me." 

Sommer is not the first Die Linke member to leave the party over its pro-Russian policies.

She was born in 1971 as the daughter of a teacher in Varto in southeast Turkey (northern Kurdistan). She studied history and is a state-approved translator.

During her time as MP, she supported Kurds in Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan and repeatedly asked the German government questions about its policies on Kurds.

In 2019, she stated that the "German federal government needs to recognize and support the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) as a stabilizing ally."

Read More: German Left Party congratulates Kurdistan Region on new government

"The Federal Government [in Germany] must finally recognize the Kurds as a stabilizing actor in the region and treat them accordingly," she added.

In 2020, she also criticized Turkish-backed groups for repeatedly cutting off the water to Kurdish-controlled Syria's northeast.