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Turkey clashes at least two people killed in southeast between (PKK) and Huda-par

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clashes-pkk-turkeyClashes between, Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Huda-Par, in southeast Turkey have left two people dead. report presstv

According to a local governor’s office, the deadly skirmishes occurred in the town of Cizre on Saturday and also left three people injured.

The town has seen an escalation in tensions since Friday night, when the Huda-Par militant group assaulted tents belonging to the PKK, a security source said. The unnamed source added that clashes in Cizre are continuing sporadically.

Huda-Par has long been antagonistic toward the PKK, which has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s.

Violent street fights occurred between the Huda Par group and the PKK in southeast Turkey in October, when the ISIL terror group was battling Kurdish forces in the mainly Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria.

The Turkish government has not intervened militarily against ISIL terrorists, in a move which has angered the country’s Kurdish residents.

Turkey launched a peace process with the PKK in 2012 to end the Kurdish struggle for independence. The PKK declared a ceasefire with Turkey last March after its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, ordered an end to the armed campaign for autonomy.

It is feared that negotiations between Ankara and the PKK for a peaceful resolution would be derailed due to the standoff over Kobani.

 

Davutoğlu Turkey, Iraq share same policy towards ISIL, PKK

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Davutoglu-Iraq-PMPrime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said Turkey and Iraq follow the same approach towards all terrorist groups in the region on Thursday.

“Turkey will continue to provide all kinds of support to Iraq in the fight against terrorist groups in the region. The two countries share the same approach against those groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK),” Davutoğlu added.

Addressing a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Thursday, Davutoğlu said Turkey’s main agenda is security and reiterated Turkey’s support for the territorial integrity of Iraq.

When asked about the claims that foreign fighters flow into Syria and Iraq via Turkey, Davutoğlu said Turkey is against this.

“There shouldn’t be any fighters in Syria and Iraq except their own citizens. Turkey is ready to cooperate against foreign fighters,” Davutoğlu added.

Speaking at the press conference, the Iraqi prime minister praised Turkey’s efforts in training Iraqi forces.

Abadi is visiting Turkey on Dec. 25-26 to meet senior Turkish officials and attend the Turkey-Iraq High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council meeting.

Turkey, Will Kurds help Erdoğan reach his ambitions?

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By ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ

Prominent intellectual Mehmet Altan ran quite a thought-provoking article with the title “Fascism in the west, autonomy in the east?” on April 30 on the T24 web portal.

The central theme of his piece was the following: The Kurds will no longer be a part of the struggle for democracy in Turkey because they have a different agenda now. They will give Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the presidency he has long desired, in exchange for the regional autonomy of Kurdish regions.

Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has not and most probably will not have enough seats in Parliament to make constitutional changes on its own. However, if Kurdish deputies support his ambitions, Erdoğan may be able to change the Constitution, not only to the presidential system but also to create quite an authoritarian regime in this country.

After publishing his article, Altan received quite a strong reaction from some circles close to the AKP. They, like they do all the time, accused Altan of intending to destroy the Kurdish peace process, and they said Altan’s hatred of the AKP made him so blind that he has even started to wish for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to take up arms once again.

Actually, there was nothing in Altan’s article inciting the PKK to violence or anything like that. Personal attacks targeting Altan are textbook examples of a new trend of how you can be branded if you voice any suspicions about the peace process and its possible gains.

I remembered all of this because the deputy chair of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Enis Berberoğlu, put quite interesting questions to a pro-Kurdish political party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Because of the 10 percent national election threshold, HDP members used to run as independent candidates in national elections. However, for the upcoming elections, the HDP has declared its intention to run as a political party rather than as individual candidates in the elections. There is a small problem here: Almost all surveys show that the HDP has quite a high risk of failure of passing this threshold, with their votes presently around 8-9 percent.

Berberoğlu, referring to all these facts, asks why they would assume this risk and if there is hidden bargaining between them and the AKP. These are important questions. Because if the HDP cannot pass the national threshold, almost all of the votes given to them will go to the political party that receives the majority of the votes, and undoubtedly that will be the AKP. If this happens, the AKP will have the majority, allowing it to change the Constitution on its own.

So, can there be such a hidden bargain between Abdullah Öcalan — the leader of the PKK who is serving a prison sentence on İmralı Island — and the AKP as part of the peace deal?

Well, if that is the case, not only will we witness a trick against the national will of Kurds and Turks but we will also hear the sound of the footsteps of fascism, as was pointed out by Altan.

This kind of hidden agreement would definitely be an immoral deal because it would obviously be tricking people into something they might not be happy about. In that case, the Kurds will be voting for the AKP while they think they are giving their votes to the HDP. AKP voters will also be deceived because they will be voting for their party without knowing major undertakings of their political party.

And the result would definitely spell a disaster for democracy in Turkey because, in this case, Erdoğan will be able to overrun an already weakened Turkish democracy.

Well, I defiantly never wish to see the PKK take up arms again, but I do not believe such a peace process will ever bring peace to any corner of this country. I hope there is no such hidden agreement, or it will be ceased.

Turkey Convenient murderer “Dink’s murder and the 3 Paris killings”

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e-uslu-b-1

EMRE USLU

e.uslu@todayszaman.com

The murder of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink is the most scandalous, mysterious murder; it was committed during the term of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and the assailants were apprehended. However, these assailants were being used at the time they committed the murder and are still being used.

Those who used them in the past to kill Dink, whom they saw as their enemy, are now using them to attack new enemies. One of the assailants hurled accusations at police officers as soon as he was released from prison. Those who gave him the gun to slay Dink have apparently given him a petition of complaint against several police officers and have sent him to the prosecutor.

There are odd details in the statement that the murderer gave to the prosecutor. For instance, he gave the prosecutor the badge numbers of five police officers, claiming that these police officers had looked up the telephone number of Yasin Hayal, who was allegedly involved in the murder of Dink, in the police department’s computer system five minutes after the murder. How he got these numbers is questionable, because he was in prison for the last few years.

Apparently his masters who sent him to attack Christian missionaries and Armenians — whom they stigmatized as enemies — are preparing to send him to attack their new enemy, the Hizmet movement. Or do you believe that a murderer who has been silent out of fear for many years in prison learned the badge numbers of five police officers in his dreams and decided to be an informant?

Let me tell you why this “convenient” murderer has been ordered to talk: The government seeks to curry favor with the leftists and liberals in the fight it has been waging against the Hizmet movement. If it can manage to put the blame for Dink’s murder on those police officers whom it portrays as being affiliated with the movement, the government will be able to criminalize the movement and alienate the liberals who support the movement…

I have reiterated this countless times. The ruling AKP, prosecutors and Nedim Şener, who wrote a book about Dink’s murder, were all unwilling to investigate the murder in depth and with the intention of finding out the mastermind behind the murder. Everything was being done to cover up the connection of the murder to the state.

If you really want to find the real perpetrators of Dink’s murder, you must focus on the powers that are behind the murderers and not on the murderers themselves. But you won’t do this because those powers don’t want you to do so. There is a single document the court must investigate if it is really willing to investigate Dink’s murder and the killing of several Christian missionaries in Malatya: the decisions taken during the National Security Council (MGK) meetings held in 2004 about the activities of Christian missionaries and the Armenian issue.

Why did the Religious Affairs Directorate decide to take action against the missionary activities and sponsor a book about them? Why did certain media outlets start to churn out news stories and TV programs as though Turkey was snowed under with Christian minorities?

I know you won’t search for the answer because you have always been the state’s prosecutor or judge. But let me write it down: 2005 was the 90th anniversary of the Armenian tragedy. The state took certain measures at home and abroad in connection with it.

The sponsorship of a book about Christian missionaries by the Religious Affairs Directorate was one of these measures. Under the same project, media outlets kicked off campaigns to engineer public opinion and several experts on the Armenian issue mushroomed out of nowhere to make appearances on several TV channels.

Şener’s book about Dink’s murder is also part of those measures, as it serves to cover up the mastermind behind the murder. One day, the truth will come out…

Dink was sacrificed as a result of those measures. An independent court would not waste time on the claims made by a convenient murderer, but instead investigate who gave the order to that murderer.

Some may say “Dink was murdered in 2006,” but I would like to draw attention to the killing of three Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members in Paris in 2013. The state made a decision in 2012 to act against the PKK leaders. In the wake of the Uludere tragedy — in which 34 civilians were mistaken for terrorists and killed by military airstrikes in Şırnak’s Uludere district in 2011 due to false intelligence — the state adopted a new concept, but old “measures” were kept in force. The state initiated peace talks with the PKK, but at the same time, it also killed off the PKK leaders. This is what we get from the media reports that appeared in the wake of the Paris killings.

As a result of such measures, Murat Karayılan, the PKK military wing’s number one, was captured in Iran. A very high-ranking intelligence officer had said: “We cannot go and capture Karayılan using the intelligence from the US while the state was negotiating with the PKK. Therefore, we gave the information to the Iranians, who caught him.”

This is the way the state operates. It worked in the same manner in Dink’s murder and with the Paris killings. My intention is not to protect the police or military officers who should be held responsible for the murder. My suggestion is that all police and military officers who were in office at that time, politicians and those who took those decisions at the MGK should be tried by a real and independent court and not with fake investigations, fake indictments and fake courts. This could be the Constitutional Court or an international court, but it must be a real court to punish the real perpetrators. But Turkey cannot do this because everyone knows the real perpetrators. This murder cannot be resolved but is instead covered up by fake courts, fake indictments, expedient murderers and fake books.

Dink’s murder was one of the results of the measures the state took in 2005, i.e., on the 90th anniversary of the Armenian issue. 2015 is the 100th anniversary of this issue and Turkey is taking new measures. Perhaps, the first of these measures is to make that convenient murderer talk…

Turkey 3 Kurdish PKK killed amid fears of increased attacks by PKK and ISIL

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195409_newsdetailThree Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members were killed on Thursday by security forces after they set a power plant on fire, as concerns about Turkey being targeted by the PKK and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have grown following a series of murders in the east. Report TodayZaman

The National Police Department has reportedly issued a warning against the possibility of further terrorist attacks amid consecutive murders that have occupied the political agenda since early October, when protests over the border town of Kobani claimed more than 40 lives in Turkey. Meanwhile, the PKK has intensified its attacks both on security forces and military outposts.

Bingöl Deputy Police Chief Atıf Şahin and police officer Hüseyin Hatipoğlu were killed by gunfire from terrorists on Oct. 9, while Bingöl Police Chief Atalay Ülker was severely injured in the assault and hospitalized. Four of the alleged assailants were killed in clashes after the attack, Interior Minister Efkan Ala announced. However, there are serious unsolved points in the incident, as the PKK has argued that the four individuals were not members of the terrorist group, prompting questions about the attack and its perpetrators.

However, claims of negligence regarding the deaths have appeared in the media, as a court rejected the police’s request for a search of the city following intelligence that a group of terrorists had entered the city to target the police force.

According to the media reports, the intelligence reports received by the National Police Department revealed that extremist groups are preparing for more intensified assaults on big cities and are targeting prominent figures in society, such as prosecutors, judges, police chiefs, lawyers and members of civil society.

The same intelligence report also warned that ISIL cells have decided to stage suicide bombings in seven Turkish provinces, and all police units in the country have been notified in case the possible attacks take place.

Sedat Laçiner, a professor of international relations and the rector of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (ÇOMÜ), told Today’s Zaman that assaults with bomb-laden vehicles and suicide bombings are expected in the upcoming days because of the current atmosphere, in which coordination between the government and police force has been severely damaged since the government started conducting operations into the police force. “The operations and investigations into the police, as well as [massive] reassignments, have created a vulnerable security [situation] for Turkey, since the newly appointed members of the police do not have enough experience in the fields of intelligence and terrorism, which are crucial [with regard] to hampering terrorist activities in the country,” he added.

Since a major corruption scandal implicating then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s family and inner circle went on public on Dec. 17, the government has been carrying out sweeping operations into the police force by accusing some members of plotting against the government, which is considered a move to evade the corruption accusations.

3 PKK killed after attack on power plant

 

Despite the fact that government-led meetings with the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, and other Kurdish political actors are continuing to try and solve the country’s long-decades Kurdish problem, three members of the PKK were killed after they raided a hydroelectric power plant and clashed with gendarmes in the eastern province of Kars on Thursday evening.

Four PKK members staged an attack at a hydroelectric power plant in Kağızman, a district of Kars province. A clash erupted between them and district gendarmes that had arrived at the plant. The four individuals refused to surrender and opened fire at the gendarmes while attempting to flee by a car. The gendarmerie killed three terrorists and launched an operation in order to capture the fourth.

It was reported that four AK-47s and many hand grenades were discovered in the car used by the PKK members.

The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, European Union and Turkey.

ISIL abducts Syrian opposition commander and son

 

Confirming claims that ISIL is becoming more active in Turkish territory, 15 ISIL militants last week were reported to have abducted an opposition commander, referred to as Hasan M., along with his son, after crossing into Turkey from Syria in the border city of Şanlıurfa.

The Taraf daily reported that the commander and his son were rescued.

As Turkey is now discussing the issue of whether it is the correct move to supply arms to Kurdish peshmerga elements fighting against ISIL in Syrian town of Kobani in the wake of the US having air-dropped weaponry for the militants, ISIL has intensified its activities in Turkish soil, especially in the country’s Southeast.

According to the news report, 15 ISIL militants abducted Hasan M., a commander with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighting against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, and his son, but the hostages were rescued while injured following an operation into the militants in Şanlıurfa’s Akçakale district.

Lawyer Tanay attacked with gun

 

In another incident, former Contemporary Jurists’ Association (ÇHD) İstanbul branch head Taylan Tanay was attacked by three unidentified armed people suspected of belonging to the far-left terrorist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) in the Avcılar district of İstanbul on Wednesday night. Tanay sought refuge in a supermarket to escape after they shot at him.

The police suspected that the DHKP/C terrorist organization was behind the attack since Tanay is reportedly listed on a blacklist of the organization. The police have launched an investigation into the attack.

Meanwhile, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) asked the government on Thursday to establish a parliamentary investigation commission related to the Bingöl assault, but the proposal was rejected by ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputies in Parliament. The HDP claimed that the Bingöl attack is a mysterious, provocative incident.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) also gave support to the HDP’s proposal, arguing that four people who have no links to the Bingöl incident were executed after the attack, and accused the government of trying to cover up the incident, accusing deep state elements nested in the state of being behind the assassination.

KCK scouts police officers’ homes

 

Members of the outlawed Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) are reported to be preparing to assassinate a number of intelligence and terror chiefs and officers in the police force, and have scouted the aforementioned polices officers’ homes for the planned murders.

Media reports have argued that a list of police officers who were removed from their posts following Dec. 17 was handed over to KCK militants to be assassinated.

Since Kobani, consecutive murders mar country’s agenda

A series of killings that started in October during the Kobani protests has gained momentum with a new wave of unsolved murders in Turkey’s East, a region that became known in the 1990s for assassinations allegedly by agents of the deep state.

Within just the last two weeks, four people have been murdered in various eastern and southeastern provinces, and an Iranian journalist, Serene Shim, was killed on Saturday in a highly suspicious car accident the day after she complained that the Turkish government had accused her of being an agent collecting intelligence for a foreign country.

In the latest incident, Salih Tekinalp, a former mayor of Şanlıurfa’s Suruç district, and his son Sinan Tekinalp, were shot and killed in their car by unidentified assailants on Sunday.

Also, a shop owner in the city of Van, Muhammed Latif Şener, (66), was shot in the head on Saturday by unidentified persons while heading home. The Patriotic Revolutionist Youth Movement (YDG-H) — an affiliate of the PKK — is accused of being behind the murder.

PKK members ‘throw smoke bomb’ at Turkish Culture Ministry office in Rome

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n_73083_1Some of the protesters hurled red paint at the building and wrote ‘murderers’ on its walls during the demonstration in Rome. DHA Photo

Members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have staged an attack with smoke bombs on the Turkish Culture Ministry attaché’s office in Rome, Culture Minister Ömer Çelik stated via his Twitter account on Oct. 16.

“A group of 20 PKK members attacked the Culture Ministry office during a demonstration in front of the building. They threw smoke bombs at our office. We condemn this attack,” Çelik said. Some of the protesters hurled red paint at the building and wrote “murderers” on its walls.

The attack comes amid unprecedented tension in southeastern Turkey, particularly since the start of the Kurdish peace process in 2013. Some 37 protesters have died in clashes following widespread demonstrations across the country against the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane.

The Turkish government has been criticized for its perceived lack of action against ISIL, particularly by the Kurdish-leftist bloc the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Pro-Kobane demonstrations have also been held across Europe, but no other Turkish foreign mission has been targeted.

PKK condemns Turkey’s military airstrikes against its fighters

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Members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party

382227_PKK-TurkeyTurkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has condemned Turkish military airstrikes against its fighters in the southeast of the country as violation of a ceasefire with the government.

The PKK issued a statement on Tuesday, saying the Turkish military airstrikes on its fighters violate a ceasefire agreed between the two sides two years ago.

“For the first time in nearly two years, an air operation was carried out against our forces by the occupying Turkish Republic army,” the PKK said in the statement, adding, “These attacks against two guerrilla bases at Daglica violated the cease-fire.”

The group added that the raids have not caused casualties among its members.

Turkish media reported earlier in the day that the military launched airstrikes on two PKK bases in the Daglica area in Hakkari Province close to the Iraqi border.

“F-16 and F-4 warplanes which took off from (bases in the southeastern provinces of) Diyarbakir and Malatya rained down bombs on PKK targets after they attacked a military outpost in the Daglica region,” Hurriyet daily said.

The strikes reportedly followed three days of PKK shelling on a military outpost in the Kurdish-majority province near the Iraqi border.

Ankara launched a peace process with the PKK in 2012 to end the Kurdish struggle for independence.

The PKK declared a ceasefire with Turkey last March after the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan ordered an end to the armed campaign for autonomy.

The attacks come as Kurds in Turkey are angry at the government for preventing them from crossing into neighboring Syria to join the fight against ISIL terrorists in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani.

Ankara also refuses to intervene along its border with Syria where ISIL militants have besieged the mainly Kurdish town.

According to reports, the Takfiri militants have taken half of the Syrian city.

 

Armed PKK back in Turkey, senior group leader says

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n_72836_1The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has deployed armed forces back to Turkey, said Cemil Bayık, a senior leader of the  organization, also retreting his pessimism about the recent talks between the Turkish government and the PKK.

The PKK will restart fights in case killings of Kurds continue in Kobane, the Syrian border town where the clashes between the armed Kurdish forces and Islamist State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have contiued since more than three weeks.

News agencies report that ISIL keeps advancing in and outside the town, from where more than 150,000 people fled to Turkey.

“If things continue this way, the guerrilas will fight to defend our people. The core task of the guerillas is to defend the people,” Bayık reportedly said.

A group of PKK  launched the symbolic withdrawal in May 2013, as part of the talks to resolve the decades-long Kurdish issue.

Bayık did not mention how many militants were sent back to the Turkish soil.

“As the government continues to deploy soldiers to the southeast and east, we decided to take action,” saying that a military action motion approved at the Turkish Parliament on earlier this week was “a declaration of war” against them.

A total of 37 people were killed this week’s unrest that broke at demostrations in the country, densely at provinces with high Kurdish population.

The PKK calls on government to do more for the Kurds trapped in Kobane. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan said Oct. 10 that Turkish soldiers were not mercenaries.

Massacre in Kobane would end PKK’s peace talks with Turkey: Öcalan

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ISTANBUL – Reuters

n_72440_1Smoke rises after a mortar shell landed in the south of the city center of Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane, seen from the Turkish side of border. Thousands of refugees from Kobani have arrived in the Turkish town of Suruç in recent days. AP Photo

Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has warned that peace talks between his group and the Turkish government will come to an end if Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) militants are allowed to carry out a massacre in a predominantly Kurdish town on the Syrian border.

ISIL militants have besieged the border of town of Kobane for more than two weeks, sending more than 150,000 Syrian Kurds fleeing to Turkey and piling pressure on the NATO member to intervene.

“If this massacre attempt achieves its goal it will end the process,” Öcalan said in a statement released by a delegation which visited him in jail on Oct. 1.

“I urge everyone in Turkey who does not want the process and the democracy voyage to collapse to take responsibility in Kobane,” he added in the statement, released on Oct. 2.

Kurdish forces allied to the PKK, the People’s Defence Units (YPG), are fighting against the ISIL insurgents attacking Kobane.

Kurdish PKK commander threatens to resume war on Turkey

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By Amberin Zaman for Al monitor

Amberin Zaman is an Istanbul-based writer who has covered Turkey for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Voice of America. A frequent commentator on Turkish television, she is currently Turkey correspondent

On Sept. 24, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) issued a highly critical statement. In a nutshell, it said that Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had “eliminated” the conditions of a mutually observed 18-month cease-fire between the PKK and the Turkish army. It said that, in response to “the AKP’s war against our people, our leadership PKK-commandercouncil has decided to step up its struggle in every area and by all possible means.” I had heard similar words on Sept. 21 from Cemil Bayik, the top PKK commander in the field, during a three-hour meeting I had with him in a tent in the Kandil mountains.

“We may resume our war at the end of September. We have the authority to resume the war,” Bayik said.

“What of the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan?” I asked.

“We have a division of labor. Our leader has the authority to make peace,” he replied.

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you sure?” I asked repeatedly, because his words could have profound consequences for Turkey and its government.

Bayik responded positively: “We will be making a statement to this effect,” he said.

I thus decided to wait for the PKK to make its statement before publishing this interview. I did not want to be the first to impart the gloomy news. Because in the repressive climate that is gripping Turkey, I might have been accused of warmongering. So, is there a real risk that the insurgency will resume? Won’t Ocalan have the final say? Is the PKK’s statement no more than a tactical move aimed at putting pressure on the government? I would say yes to both questions. That said, with every passing day that the AKP government fails to take concrete steps to solve the Kurdish problem, the risk of the cease-fire’s ending grows. I raised all of these issues with Bayik, who hasn’t set foot in Turkey since 2000. The following are the highlights of the interview he gave to Al-Monitor:

Al-Monitor: How is the Islamic State (IS) onslaught against Kobani (the Syrian Kurdish-majority town of Ayn al-Arab on the Turkish border) affecting the peace process in Turkey?

Bayik: The attacks by Daesh [the initials of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham] against Kobani helped elucidate two things. One was whether Turkey’s collaboration with Daesh is continuing or not. The other is whether the peace process is continuing in the north [i.e., Turkey] or not. What emerged is that Turkey is continuing its relations with Daesh and that Turkey will not solve the Kurdish problem in the north. Because a Turkey that supports Daesh’s attacks against Kobani, that seeks to depopulate Kobani and lobbies for the establishment of a buffer zone cannot sever its ties with Daesh. Because if it did so Daesh would expose all of Turkey’s dirty laundry, and document the links between them.

Al-Monitor: Are you able to prove that these links exist?

Bayik: Before Daesh attacked Kobani, Turkish officials contacted the YPG [the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units] official responsible for Kobani. They warned him that should the YPG attack the Shah tomb [the Ottoman Tomb of Suleiman Shah inside Syria, which is guarded by Turkish troops and considered Turkish territory] that Turkey would retaliate in kind. I repeat, they said this before we were aware that Daesh would attack. Isn’t this strange?

Second, two days after the campaign against Kobani started, a Turkish train stopped at an Arab village near [the IS-controlled] Tal Abyad border gate and unloaded weapons and ammunition that were taken by Daesh. There are eyewitnesses to this transfer. And during this period the [Turkish] hostages [held by IS in Mosul] affair is supposedly resolved. These events are all interlinked. Turkey then opens the Mursitpinar border gate with Kobani just as Daesh fires Katyusha rockets at Kobani and surrounding villages to sow panic among the people. Turkey opens the border gate on the third day of the attack so that the people can flee to Turkey. This is what Daesh wants as well. This proves the collusion between them. Because Turkey has long wanted the establishment of a buffer zone. Its aim is to prevent the Kurds in Rojava [Syrian Kurdish areas in western Kurdistan] from winning a formal status. By emptying Kobani and provoking a mass exodus of people, Turkey can then claim before the international community that its own security is at stake and set about establishing a buffer zone.

Al-Monitor: Very senior Iraqi Kurdish officials told me that Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s national spy agency (MIT), had as recently as last week offered to mediate between the Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). Doesn’t this contradict your claims?

Bayik: Not at all. Turkey always supported the KDP against the PYD. Now they [the Turks] are supposedly trying to drive a wedge between the PKK and the PYD and to draw the PYD into an alliance with groups that are close to [the Turks] and to bring them in line with their own [Turks’] Syria policy. There are thousands of Syrian Kurds within the PKK. During the war [against Turkey] 1,500 Syrian Kurds were martyred. Many Syrian Kurd commanders from the PKK went over to Rojava to train YPG forces and to help them in the fight against Daesh. Such matters do not always work the way Turkey intends them to through money and weapons. And there is no friction between the YPG and the PKK as claimed. They are acting together in the south [Iraqi Kurdistan] in Kirkuk, in Shengal, in Rabiya. The only force to defend Rojava is the PKK.

Al-Monitor: IS has some very modern weapons. Aren’t you having trouble combating them?

Bayik: Yes, they have modern American weapons they seized in Mosul. Our own weapons aren’t effective against the American tanks that they use. Besides, we are used to fighting in mountainous terrain and now we are forced to do so in open plains. But we are a movement that adapts quickly to new circumstances.

Al-Monitor: Getting back to the peace process, you say that you have realized that the AKP will not solve the Kurdish problem

Bayik: We realized this a while back. There is tremendous pressure on our leader [Ocalan] and a very ugly psychological war that is being waged against him. Propaganda is being spread to demean him in the eyes of the people.

Al-Monitor: To the contrary, what we see is that Ocalan has been legitimized before the public as never before.

Bayik: You may not see this, but there are those who know and it’s reached all the way to us. I am telling you openly: Turkey must immediately stop these psychological ops tactics and end its pressure on our leader.

Al-Monitor: Can you be more explicit. What kind of pressure?

Bayik: I do not want to share all the details. It may not be appropriate at this time. But there is no improvement in the internment conditions of our leader. Recently, his sister and nephew visited him and they were put in a room where nobody could breathe. The nephew protested to the prison guards, saying they were aware of our leader’s breathing difficulties. Their response was that they would have to meet there and that was all. Moreover, they forced the meeting to end before the allotted time. The new government is trying to force our leader to roll back his demands by applying pressure on him. This applies especially to the negotiating points. But as they know he won’t back down, they are going to use this as an excuse to set the stage for war.

Al-Monitor: Are you saying that Turkey wants to resume the war?

Bayik: Absolutely. If this were not so, they would have worked harder at solving the problem. They would have improved the internment conditions of our leader. They would have accepted the presence of third-party observers in the peace talks. And they would have allowed the negotiating sides to carry equal weight. All they have done is to pass a bill to “end terrorism” in the parliament [legislation that effectively formalized the talks without actually referring to their substance]. And they did so kicking and screaming. We are concerned with actions, not words. The negotiations have still not started. They want to keep the talks on a dialogue level. They want to deceive our people. We have been in dialogue for years. We went back and forth to Oslo for years [the secret Oslo talks that ended in 2009].

Al-Monitor: Did you go to Oslo?

Bayik: No.

Al-Monitor: Have you had contact with any Turkish officials over the phone?

Bayik: No. I haven’t touched a phone since 2003 for personal security reasons.

Al-Monitor: During the presidential campaign of [the left-wing People’s Democracy Party (HDP) Kurdish candidate] Selahattin Demirtas the Kurdish political movement gained a lot of ground. Demirtas won support from most unexpected quarters. By talking in this manner, aren’t you undermining peaceful politics?

Bayik: As we are at the center of this process, if we say there is no progress in the peace progress, that means there is no progress because there is no one better placed to assess this. We have paid a very heavy price during 40 years of conflict. Thousands of our fighters and cadres were martyred. Thousand of Kurdish villages were burned and destroyed. Thousands of our people fell victim to extrajudicial killings. And now we see that the numbers of village guards (a state-paid anti-PKK Kurdish militia) are growing. Army garrisons are being built, together with supply roads. We are sticking to the cease-fire but they are not. And they took advantage of the cease-fire to launch a war against Rojava. We gave them time. We said they had until the end of September to take certain steps. We said that unless they do so by the end of September the war would resume.

Al-Monitor: Did you say “we will resume” or “may resume”?

Bayik: “May resume.”

Al-Monitor: But don’t you need Ocalan’s authorization for this?

Bayik: We decide on war. The authority to end the cease-fire lies with us. But our leader Apo [“Uncle,” Ocalan’s nickname] decides on peace, on the continuation of the peace process. His role is different from ours. We are complementary.

Giant pictures of Ocalan are scattered across the Kandil mountains in northeastern Iraq. (photo by Amberin Zaman)

Al-Monitor: But if Apo says peace must prevail, you won’t be able to decide on war. Thus the final decision rests with Apo.

Bayik: Ocalan is our leader. We are a movement that obeys its leader. We are loyal to our leader. But unless Turkey takes some steps, how can our leader say, “No, do not fight?” We are having trouble restraining our fighters as it is.

Al-Monitor: What are your demands from Turkey?

Bayik: The internment conditions of our leader need to be improved. We cannot negotiate in his present conditions. Third-party observers must be allowed to take part in the negotiations. They can be from civil society, from the parliament or from an international organization. It can also be a foreign power. And the support being given to Daesh against Rojava must end. Rojava is part of the peace process. This is clear.

Al-Monitor: Just as you have won plaudits for your role in helping the Yazidis in Sinjar and for your prowess in combating IS, and just as the international community is debating delisting the PKK and American cooperation with the YPG, would you not be throwing this all away by attacking Turkey, a NATO member?

Bayik: No. We are a legal movement. And nobody can blame the PKK. Until now we have declared nine unilateral cease-fires since 1993. In 2013, on the occasion of Nowruz (the Kurdish New Year), we freed all our prisoners. We ended the war and began to withdraw our fighters from Turkey. We are not eyeing anyone’s territory. We are not seeking independence. All we want is to live freely with our own identity, culture and values in democratic conditions.

Al-Monitor: But is it not risky to open a second front against Turkey when you are fighting IS in Rojava?

Bayik: We have been fighting for 40 years. If need be, we shall fight for many more years. We are fighting because we are being forced to do so. We are not going to surrender after 40 years. No power can implement its strategies in the Middle East without taking the PKK into account.

Al-Monitor: You speak of democracy but in recent days a group that calls itself the PKK’s youth wing has been burning down schools in the southeast of Turkey. Do such actions have any place in a democracy?

Bayik: Burning schools is wrong. But our people built schools there with their own means. They want to study in the Kurdish language, so why is the state forbidding this? There is a great deal of anger among our youth. Even we are having trouble restraining them. When we ask them why they burn schools, they respond, “Why are our schools being shut down?” There is a lot of alienation. The number of people joining our ranks last month has exceeded that in 1993. In 1993, around 1,000 people would join every month. Last month, 1,200 people joined.

Al-Monitor: The Turkish government spokesman Huseyin Celik said that we can now talk with Kandil (the PKK leadership). No sooner did Ahmet Davutoglu become prime minister, he made very positive statements about the peace process. For the first time, a government is talking directly to Ocalan and announcing this to the public. It has done more than any of its predecessors to solve the Kurdish problem. Does none of this mean anything? Besides, why would the government want to go to war before the elections?

Bayik: Yes, the government continues to speak positively about the peace process. And the pro-government media is helping to propagate this upbeat mood. This is a delaying tactic, a deception. They are trying to portray Apo as being optimistic when in fact he continually criticizes the AKP during the talks. They want to drain the process of all its substance and they want to manage it at their whim. What was their aim? To win the [March 2014] local elections and then the [August 2014] presidential elections. And now they want to win the 2015 [parliamentary] elections.

It’s true that they would not want to resume the war before the elections. They want the cease-fire to continue, but they want it to continue without making any concessions, save for a few unimportant gestures. After the 2015 elections, their position may change.