By: Rudaw.net
Remzi Kartal
PARIS, France – Exiled Kurdish leader Remzi Kartal, a former MP who continues to play an active role in Kurdish politics, says that the Kurds have doubts about the Turkish government’s sincerity in peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party, since Turkish officials blamed the assassination of 
three Kurdish women on an internal PKK feud.
Kartal, who is currently the leader of the People’s Congress of Kurdistan (Kongra-Gel), was an active politician in Turkey until he fled the country in 1994 after several of his colleagues were arrested and imprisoned by the Turkish authorities. Since 2003, when Kongra-Gel was listed as a terrorist organization by the UN and the European Union, Kartal has faced frequent arrests in Europe. In April 2011, the US Department of Treasury designated Kartal and four other Kurds as drug traffickers. Despite US and Turkish pressure, Kartal was never extradited to Turkey. He spoke to Rudaw in Paris, as thousands of angry demonstrators demanded justice over the three Kurdish women found shot dead.
Rudaw: Do you think this assassination will affect the peace talks?
Remzi Kartal: The peace talks have been led directly by our leader Abdullah Ocalan, as he is the main actor in this. It will be up to him to decide how to proceed. It would not be right to comment on this issue now.
Rudaw: But Kurds are now very angry and some of them call for revenge.
Remzi Kartal: This is a very natural response. The killings have three dimensions: gender, social and national. These three women were fighting for solving the women’s issue, as well as the social and national issues. This means that we want to succeed in the women’s liberation struggle, as well as in national and social liberation. We will continue to fulfill their aims. In this sense, to seek revenge means to overcome the system that is denying the Kurdish rights and is oppressing our people.
Rudaw: Do you know if Sakine Cansiz, one of the three women killed in Paris, was involved in the Oslo talks?
Remiz Kartal: No, this is not true. The Turkish media are spreading false information.
Rudaw: What do you think about the statements of the Turkish prime minister, and Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of his ruling AKP party, who said that the killings were an internal PKK feud?
Remzi Kartal: Just at the moment this incident was known Huseyin Celik made such a statement, which is his own interpretation, and he wishes it was so. It does not reflect the truth. But of course, Celik’s statements raised big doubts in the Kurdish community about the role of the AKP in this event. He deepened the doubts about the AKP. As the Kurdish side it was our expectation — parallel to the talks on Imrali — that there would have been a more objective way for the AKP to approach these killings of our friends. Of course, Celik’s statements have raised doubt about the approach of the government, and whether that approach is serious.
Rudaw: Are there also suspicions that the Turkish Islamic Gulen movement played a role in the incident?
Remzi Kartal: We don’t have evidence so far that could prove this. We just noticed media close to the Gulen movement expressing joy over the killings.
Rudaw: Was it true that Sakine Cansiz was supposed to go to Brussels the day of the killing?
Remzi Kartal: That they were supposed to go to Brussels is a scenario put forth by the Turkish media. According to the information we have, she and Leyla Soylemez (a second victim) were on their way to Germany.
Rudaw: Do the statements of the AKP make Kurds regard it as the main suspect?
Remzi Kartal: Yes, of course the statements by the AKP representatives are turning the reality into something else and creating another image. This has aroused very big doubts…
As a movement we expect that, if we want this process to be sustainable, then the AKP should have shown an approach that would have contributed to finding out the truth, finding out who did this and who is involved in this killing. One of the essential problems is the very first statement, made when the event was not really known to the public. From the very beginning the statements were accusing our movement, and that is the actual problem, because it was used to manipulate the truth.