Germany: Özdemir warns of ‘Mini-Pakistan’ in Turkey as Germany sharpens travel advisory

July 29, 2015 By administrator

German politician Cem Özdemir has slammed Turkey’s president, saying the country was turning into a “mini-Pakistan.” The German foreign office has warned of possible terror attacks on transport systems in Istanbul.

The co-chair of the Green party in Germany’s Bundestag, Cem Özdemir, issued strong words Wednesday against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying Turkey would be “plunged into chaos” under his leadership.
His comments followed Turkey’s retaliation against attacks on its soil by launching airstrikes against the “Islamic State” (“IS”) militant group in Syria, but also against the minority Kurdish militant group PKK’s headquarters in northern Iraq. A peace process to end some 30 years of deadly violence between the outlawed PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and the Turkish government, which had been underway since 2013, was called off by Erdogan this week.
“We cannot look away when a country, which until yesterday wanted to join the EU, is transforming under Erdogan into a mini-Pakistan with an authoritarian ruler, right on the European border,” Özdemir, who was the first person of Turkish heritage to become a member of Germany’s parliament back in the 1990s, told the “Passauer Neuen Presse” newspaper.
According to Özdemir, the long-time Turkish leader had been turning a blind eye to “Islamic State” and Turkey’s actions against the group were merely symbolic.
“It’s to deceive us in the West. Hardly any positions from ISIS are being attacked and relatively few ISIS supporters have been arrested,” he said, using an alternative name for IS.

Travelers urged to be vigilant

Meanwhile, the German government has warned its citizens of an increased risk of terror attacks in Turkey, especially in the city of Istanbul, in the wake of Ankara’s assault. The foreign office has updated its advice to citizens planning to travel there and is urging them to monitor the situation carefully.
“There could be increased attack activity by the PKK,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.
“Beyond that there are indications of possible attacks on the underground rail network and bus stops in Istanbul,” the ministry added.
Data from Turkey’s tourism ministry, released Wednesday, showed the number of foreign visitors fell by 2.25 percent during the first six months of this year, news agency Reuters reported. During that time 14.89 million people visited Turkey.
Germany is a NATO partner of Turkey and home to about 3 million people of Turkish origin.
se/kms (Reuters, dpa, AFP)

Source: DW.com

Kurdish Barzani Told Davutoglu: ”Turkey Has the Right to Attack PKK” report

July 25, 2015 By administrator

Barazani right, Davutoglu Left

SULAIMANI – Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani was aware of Turkish plans to bombard areas inside the region where the Kurdistan Workers’ Party operates, Anadolu Agency reported Saturday.

Barzani reportedly discussed the airstrikes with Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu over a phone call.
The Anadolu report also stated that Barzani told Davutoglu he is ready to support Turkey in fighting against “terrorists.”
“Barzani told me that the Turkish operations against Islamic State (IS) group and PKK is your right,” Davutoglu said.

Turkish warplanes began launching airstrikes across northern areas inside the Kurdistan Region on Friday, effectively ending a two-year ceasefire between Ankara and PKK fighters.
Following the air raids, the PKK-affiliated Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) called for increased attacks on The AK Party, to which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and PM Ahmet Davutoglu belong.
Tensions between Ankara and the PKK have reached a high this week following a bombing in the southern Turkish city of Suruc on Monday, in which a suicide bomber, believed to have ties to IS, attacked a group of young Kurdish activists preparing to transport aid to the devastated city of Kobane, just 10 km across the border.

PKK members killed two police officers following the attack, claiming that the Turkish government was being complacent as IS militants cross the border in each ways.
Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=007_1437845531#DOQWQbxCVlWDK1gS.99

Turkish bombardment in Barazani Kurdistan injures many Kurdish civilians

July 25, 2015 By administrator

Injured civilians being carried to Duhok State Hospital. Photo : Rudaw

DUHOK, Kurdistan Region — Two injured citizens carried to hospital in the aftermath of Turkish artillery bombardment of Amediye region in Duhok province last night.

Two villagers from Koker village in Duhok’s Berwari region were injured with Turkish artillery shells, said Rudaw’s reporter. One of the victims was 12 years old, and was carried to the State Hospital of Duhok.

The second victim lost his leg in the strikes and was taken into operation room.

Hakurk Mountain near Sidekan town of Duhok was bombarded three times from air and the ground with Turkish artillery last night, 25th July.

Four members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed in the strikes and several others were injured, said Rudaw’s reporter.

A resident of Sergil village told Rudaw that their lives were in danger. Many of residents of this village are members of the Peshmerga forces and are fighting the Islamic State (ISIS), “How could they fight in battle while worrying about their families,” said one villager.

Around 400 villagers have been isolated in a remote area in that region due to the shelling, said Rudaw’s reporter.

Source: Rudaw

Paris Turkish ’MİT involved in murder of 3 KURD women in Paris’ indictment says in Le Monde

July 24, 2015 By administrator

A prosecutor’s office in Paris has accused Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) of the assassination of three senior female members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Paris in 2013, according to an indictment published by the Le Monde newspaper, the Zaman daily reported on Friday.

According to the report, the Paris prosecutor overseeing the investigation is demanding that Ömer Güney, the only suspect in the case, be indicted for the killing of PKK members Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Söylemez on Jan. 9, 2013. The three Kurdish women were found dead with gunshot wounds at the Kurdistan Information Bureau in Paris. The prosecutor completed the 70-page indictment after two and a half years of work.

According to the indictment, Güney was in touch with top MİT official K.T., but the Turkish government did not respond to a request for information regarding K.T. “A large amount of evidence strengthens the idea that MİT was involved in the preparation and committing of the assassination. It was discovered that Ömer Güney was engaged in spying activities and there were a number of spies in Turkey he had been secretly in touch with,” Le Monde quoted the indictment as saying.

Güney will appear before a French court in September as the single suspect in the murder. The indictment was finalized on July 7 and a gag order was issued on the probe. However, Le Monde obtained the indictment and shared crucial details in its Thursday edition. Le Monde also mentioned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan‘s remarks on March 14, 2014, saying that he had admitted that the Turkish state was behind the killings. Erdoğan had blamed the incident on a faction within MİT which was allegedly linked to the “parallel state,” a term coined by Erdoğan in reference to the faith-based Gülen movement. During an election rally in Lyon, Erdoğan claimed that the “parallel state” aimed at sabotaging the settlement process between the Turkish government and the PKK through the Paris murders.

According to Le Monde, Erdoğan’s “parallel state theory” was refuted with the disclosure of internal correspondence by MİT on Jan. 14, 2014. The document in question, alleged to belong to MİT, was published in the Turkish media and suggested that Cansız was the main target of the attack and 6,000 euro was paid for her to be killed.

The assassination of the three women took place shortly after the Turkish government launched talks with the PKK, recognized as a terrorist organization by the European Union, the United States and Turkey, in order to resolve the country’s long-standing Kurdish problem in the its Southeast. Turkish daily Karşı claimed in February last year that Güney had close ties to the MİT. The claim was previously denied by MİT following the release of a voice recording allegedly featuring a conversation between Güney and two MİT agents. The French forensic police concluded that it was highly likely that the voice recording was authentic.

Karşı’s report came after Ankara rejected a request from the French Ministry of Justice to reveal the identity of Güney’s contacts. Of the 13 numbers on Güney’s phone, five were landlines, while the others belonged to mobile phones, the report claimed. According to Le Monde’s report, one of the 13 phone numbers on Güney’s phone contact list belonged to MİT.

Turkey’s former Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ in January last year denied any links between MİT and the murders. MİT also denied allegations that it was the instigator of the murders. A statement released by the intelligence organization said an internal administrative investigation into the claims was launched.

Source: Zaman

Turkey: Cease-fire out of the question unless Öcalan set free, KCK’s Bayık says

July 16, 2015 By administrator

The head of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Cemil Bayık. (Photo: DHA)

Cemil Bayık, the “number two” man of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said on Thursday that the possibility of a cease-fire is out of the question unless the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan is set free and that the required conditions to launch negotiations to seek a solution to the Kurdish problem must be met.

Bayık, also head of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella political organization for the PKK, argued that following Öcalan’s call for the PKK to lay down their arms two-and-a-half years ago, the PKK has observed an atmosphere of a cease-fire. “But despite the PKK’s move for inaction, the Turkish government has never acted in conjunction with this de facto cease-fire,” Bayık continued to argue.

“Öcalan is currently being held in prison and he is prevented from engaging in talks on the Kurdish issue, which has dominated the country’s agenda for 40 years, since the PKK launched an armed campaign that has claimed more than 40,000 lives, making a cease-fire impossible,” Bayık said.

He argued that holding Öcalan in prison is a clear reason to re-launch a war against the Turkish state.

In an article published by the Azadiya Welat daily on Thursday, Bayık contended that the government has never fulfilled the necessary conditions for sustainable peace and expedited the construction of “kalekol” (military outposts with high security) in southeastern Turkey.

He also stated that if the current government or the future government to be formed does not consider addressing the Kurdish problem and negotiating with Öcalan then nothing will change in terms of the cease-fire.

Source: Zaman

Turkish security forces launch operation targeting Kurd PKK

March 24, 2015 By administrator

Turkish security forces have launched an operation targeting shelters and stores believed to belong to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the military said on Tuesday, March 24, days after the group’s jailed leader called its armed struggle “unsustainable”.

Teams in the southeastern Mardin province were looking for outposts of the group, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against Ankara, according to Reuters.

“Security forces are conducting an operation with five teams with the aim of identifying and destroying shelters and stores believed to belong to the separatist terrorist group in the Mazidag countryside of Mardin,” the military said in a statement.

On Saturday jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called for his group to hold a congress on ending its armed struggle, which he said had become “unsustainable”. However, he stopped short of declaring an immediate end to the struggle.

President Tayyip Erdogan, then prime minister, launched talks with Ocalan in late 2012 to end an insurgency that has killed 40,000 people, ravaged the region’s economy and tarnished Turkey’s image abroad. Progress has been faltering since then, but Kurdish faith in Ocalan remains undiminished.
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Turkey Fidan admitted MİT faction executed 3 PKK women in Paris, KCK head claims

March 16, 2015 By administrator

Cemil Bayık, the head of the Kurdistan Communities’ Union (KCK), has reportedly said that Hakan Fidan, head of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), admitted that a group within the intelligence body was responsible for the execution of three Kurdish women linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Paris in 2013.

In an interview published on Sunday in the Cumhuriyet daily, Bayık, who is also the “number two” man in the outlawed PKK, claimed that the Paris murders were committed by a faction consisting of ultranationalists and members of the “parallel state,” in reference to the Gülen movement, also known as Hizmet movement, within MİT, adding, “But he [Fidan] is the head of MİT, and it is impossible to think he is not aware of the assassinations.”

Three Kurdish women, Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Söylemez, were found dead with gunshot wounds at a Kurdish information center in Paris in January 2013. The killing of the PKK-linked women is yet to be solved.

When asked whether MİT executed key members of the PKK while it was involved in the talks with the group, Bayık, who clearly expressed his lack of confidence in Fidan’s argument that he was not aware of the killings, stated that besides MİT, other international actors took part in the murders to interrupt the Kurdish settlement process. The talks were initiated in 2011 in order to seek a solution to the country’s decades-long Kurdish problem, which cost nearly 40,000 lives.

Continuing his argument that MİT is aware of the killing, Bayık went on to say, “Any information on this issue was tampered with, but those perpetrators are clear from our point of view.”

Öcalan to issue letter for Nevruz

While a heated debate continues as to whether jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan will send a video message to the people for the approaching Nevruz celebrations, which would be expected to contribute to the establishment of peace in the country, pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) İstanbul deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder has said that Öcalan will issue a letter instead of a video message.

As such a potential Nevruz message would be expected to have a positive impact on the ongoing peace talks, Önder, who visited Öcalan with a delegation of HDP deputies on Saturday, stressed that the letter that Öcalan is currently composing will include extensive reviews regarding the settlement process.

“In his letter, Öcalan is preparing to share his ideas with the Turkish people and world public regarding concrete steps for solution of the Kurdish problem. The letter will include the main principles of the path to the peace,” Önder noted.

Source: todayzaman

Diyarbakır-based Dutch journalist faces jail term for ‘PKK propaganda’

February 2, 2015 By administrator

DİYARBAKIR – Anadolu Agency

A lawsuit has been opened against Frederike Geerdink, a Diyarbakır-based Dutch journalist, on charges of making propaganda on behalf of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with the prosecutor demanding between one and five years in prison.

Geerdink was briefly detained on Jan. 6 as a part of an operation launched by the Diyarbakır Prosecutor’s Office after three different complaints were made to the Ankara police.

The 6th High Criminal Court has accepted an indictment in which the prosecutor’s office said it was determined that the journalist made PKK propaganda by sharing the organization’s flags and member’s activities on social media.

In her testimony, Geerdink pled not guilty and refused that she shared posts either praising the PKK or against the state, the indictment also said.

Geerdink’s detention came hours after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had declared at a meeting of ambassadors in Ankara that “there is no freer press, in Europe or elsewhere in the world, than in Turkey.”

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders was also attending the meeting when the journalist was detained.

While Koenders raised his concerns during his meetings with Turkish colleagues, including Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, on Jan. 6, the Turkish side defended the impartiality of the ongoing judicial process.

“The incident caused uproar because of Turkey’s unfair record,” Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said Jan. 7, asking whether European countries would not demand the testimony of a Turk “if they made propaganda of a terrorist organization.”

“Turkey is facing unfair criticism over the detained journalist,” he added.

February/02/2015

Turkey’s Internal Islamist Dangerous Tensions

January 23, 2015 By administrator

By Rebwar Rashed:

The birth of the state of Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 meant major changes. Mustafa Kemal, the Ataturk, as a president had the opportunity to put his ultra-nationalistic project into practice by forcing large political changes on the people of the area; for example, by waging a fanatical war against the others such as Armenians, Assyrians and Kurds to the point of extermination and assimilation: the demographic changes of the area, changing the names of the people, villages, towns, cities, mountains, valleys, songs, literature, music and folklore of the people of the area, was just the beginning of a long assimilation process.

Ataturk’s aim was to build a Turkish nation of “new” Turks. Thus, everything after 29th October 1923 was Turkish and belonged to the “New” Turks.

In order to realize his dream he knew that there had to be other changes which would transform the Turks into new beings. The Turks started to have a new look, with new clothes which almost copied Europeans. Many Turks inherited enormous wealth after a successful subjugation of other nationalities; they simply took over the wealth of those people they killed. It was a national political thievery that was justified by the state and its leaders. Taking over Assyrians, Armenians and Kurdish wealth was an organized and conscious political crime.

The new-made Turkey started to belong to the “new” Turks, but there were still obstacles.

Ataturk started to force secularism harshly and mercilessly on a very religious Turkish people. The only identity the Turks had and were proud of was Islam. Ataturk took it from them and locked it behind thick walls of political power.

He changed the Ottoman script from Arabic to Latin and soon a new Turkish Qur’an took over from the Arabic version. This helped to change the language of Islamic worship into a Turkish version.

By 10th November 1938, the day Ataturk died, there were millions of “new” Turks. Happy or not, was not the issue. The issue was that they lacked collective guilt then, as they still do.

Answering Ataturk’s racial extermination is the picture behind the Kurds revolt for national and democratic rights. It´s also the picture behind the Armenians’ and the Assyrians’ plea to get an apology, an understanding and a fair compensation for the pain and suffering they have faced.

It is also the picture behind today´s nostalgia for Islam in Turkey. The Turkish Islamists crave to see the great days of Islam again as they see themselves as victims. Ataturk reminds them of everything evil.

They had to wait many years to have the power to rise up.

It took almost half of a century for the Turks to regain Islam. The Milli Nizam Partisi, MNP (National Order Party) was an Islamist political party founded in 1970 by Necmettin Erbakan. But it lasted only a year and a few months. It was dismantled as it violated the articles of secularism, as it was said. The Moslem Turks didn´t give up their Islamist ambitions. They established Millî Selâmet Partisi, MSP (National Salvation Party) in October 1972. This was again led by Necmettin Erbakan. It soon became a popular party but again it was closed down in the military coup of 1980.

The 1980s were bad years for many “new” Turks who did not want to be so “new” in the way Ataturk had dreamed. By 1980, there were terrible devastation in the Kurdistan area from the killing, deportation and assimilation of Kurds. At the same time there was also a psychological and political war, albeit an undeclared one, against the Islamists.

But, in 1983, Turks announced a Refah Partisi (Welfare Party/ RP) which became the largest party in the parliament and was banned in 1998 by the military.[1] The Fazilet Partisi (Virtue Party) was established soon after in December 1998 and it was also banned in June 2001.[2]

The Turkish Islamists were now immune to the punitive measures and kept on trying.

The Virtue party’s reformist wing formed the Justice and Development Party (AKP). History witnessed the AKP was not at all so moderate and reformist-minded as it sounded then. The hardliners among the Islamists founded the Saadet Partisi (Felicity Party) in 2001, which was mainly supported by conservative Muslims in Turkey. It was the Felicity Party that mobilized thousands of protesters in demonstrations against Israeli- and American “intervention”. (Examples include the bitterness against the US army in 2003 after Saddam Hussein’s. fall, the aggressive and angry protests in 2004 against the US attack on Fallujah in Iraq, protests against the naming and drawing of Muhammad, the Islam Prophet, in newspapers around the world, responses to Israel-Palestine war in Gaza in 2008–2009, etc.)

It is worth mentioning that there is an outlawed Islamic party, namely “The Hizb ut-Tahrir”[3] which claims to have been established in 1953. It is a pan-Islamic party which calls for establishing a Caliphate in every Islamic country and has a project then to make a union by collecting everyone in an Islam nation. The name is Arabic and means “The Liberation Party” [4] which is outlawed in Turkey and other countries. The party´s name is the same no matter the country and haven´t been translated to other languages.

Strange enough, The Hizb ut-Tahrir reminds people a lot of today´s AKP party. The similarity of ideological beliefs are plentiful, i.e. liberating Palestine, calling Jerusalem by its Arabic name “Al-Quds” and seeing it as an occupied place which must be liberated, spreading Islam and uniting Islam as a Nation, etc. The party also reminds one of ISIS/ IS in an almost detailed manner, both ideologically and polemically: for instance, the banner of the party is the same as the IS/ ISIS banner as it´s black and there is the Islam confession of faith (Shahada) [5] on it, though in a different script style. (Saudi Arabia has the same flag but with a green background and a sword beneath the confession of faith).

It has come to public knowledge that many members of the Turkish Ergenekon were indeed members of other fascistic and Islamic organizations [6] such as Hizb ut-Tahrir [7] and there were hundreds of arrests in Turkey in 2008 and 2009.[8]

In the ‘90s the Turkish ultra-nationalists and fascists had established a “Kurdish” Hezbollah so they could use it against Kurdish liberation movement. The same Turkish people were against every kind of Islamism in Turkish Anatolia. This move was a new tactic to fight Kurdish progressive groups under the name of “Kurdish” Hezbollah. It seems that the Turkish establishment is well aware of the politics behind it because the Turkish media always emphasizes specifically the word “Kurdish” Hezbollah. The Turks have a history of using Islam against Kurds, so it is not so problematic for the Kurdish liberation movement to tackle this even though it costs Kurds lives and pain. The “Kurdish Hezbollah” is part of the paramilitary, linked to Village Guards and MIT officials.

In 2003, when the PKK became stronger, the Turks all of a sudden made a new move by founding an association called “Solidarity with the Oppressed (Mustazaflar ile Dayanışma Derneği or Mustazaflar Hareketi), the “Menzil group”, which also calls itself “Kurdish”. The group worked and still works as death squads against Kurdish people. The state was enjoying itself by referring to “internal Kurdish dispute”.

It is not a secret that the AKP and the Islamist establishment in Turkey have spent and are still spending enormous amounts of money in order to make it easy to the group to enter the Kurdish public sphere. On 18th April 2010 the group organized a mass meeting in Diyarbakir (Amed in Kurdish) to celebrate the anniversary of the Muhammad’s birthday which is known as Mawlud (the Birth of the Prophet), in Arabic. The state officials of Turkey marketed the event as one of the biggest “celebrations” of Muhammad’s birthday which, according to the official sources, gathered crowds of 120,000 people.

Following some up and downs of smearing campaigns among various Islamic scholars in Turkey, it seems that the AKP was behind organizing the Association for the Oppressed (Mustazaf-Der) to gain a platform and money. The AKP have lent grassroots support to them too. This was behind the head of the Association´s announcement on 17th December 2012 of the founding of a new party, the “Free Cause Party” (Hür Dava Partisi) which has its own general headquarters located in Ankara, the heart of Turkishness. Just after this, the party started to open its branches in the Kurdistan area.

Almost everybody in Turkey knows that Hezbollah is indeed a Turkish Hezbollah, not a “Kurdish” one. This party has no enmity towards the Turkish state and doesn’t bother to enquire into Turkish oppression of the Kurds and is not at all critical about the political, social and economic situation of Kurdish people. As a matter of fact, it only scares Kurds, threatens them and murders them. The “Kurdish” Hezbollah shows itself only during Kurdish mass protests against the state and acts exactly as extra police and paramilitary forces. The mission of “Kurdish” Hezbollah is to fight the Kurdish liberation and Kurdish secularist movement.

The Turkish Islamists, especially the AKP, which has money and resources, do everything to organize Kurdish Muslims. For instance, another organization by the name Peygamber Sevdalıları (Turkish)/ Evindarên Pêyxamber (Kurdish)/ Lovers of Prophet Mohammad is an organization which is affiliated to “Hezbollah”/ Huda-Par. The organization uses religious songs and music for Muhammad’s birthday (Arabic: Milad an-Nabi), knowing that the Kurds love music and song and have a tradition of religious music.

Back in October 2014, when Kurdish people in Turkey started to go on mass protests against Turkish support to the Islamist terrorist group ISIS/IS, the Turkish Special Forces – which are usually described by state officials as the “local police force” – killed at least 60 Kurdish people and wounded some 300. The killing of Kurdish protesters has continued through the last days of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. Turkey has begun a war against Kurdish people in Turkey in order to prevent them from having time to support their sisters and brothers in Rojava.

On 27th December, there were armed incidents in the Kurdish town of Cizre. Three Kurdish individuals were killed and bullets were fired almost blindly in the neighborhood. Not one single actor in the Turkish establishment hesitated to announce with the speed of light that the PKK and “Kurdish” Hezbollah were fighting and blaming each other for the attack. The Turkish media was using “Islamist Kurds” systematically. Their joy expressed the satisfaction.

It’s obvious that Turkey is doing everything it can to find an alternative to the Kurdish liberation movement. The Islamic alternative seems favorable to the Turks. The narrative of showing the PKK as a communist and anti-Islam force is still a part of Turkish psychological warfare. In much of the political literature of the ISIS/ IS and other Arabic Islamist groups in Syria, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, one can read that the PKK is a communist anti-Islam force, a force made by the West World to wage a proxy war against Turkey and Islam in the Middle East.

The bitter fight between the Fethullah Gülen movement and the Erdoğan wing requires a separate chapter. In short, the Gulinists, the Erdoğanists and other Islamic sorts are in a great disagreement and therefore in a bitter war against each other. And almost all of them dislike the Alawites. This is deepening every passing day and it could lead to a civil war among Turks. Turkey is never safer than Iraq, Libya, Syria or Lebanon. Turkey is a Middle East Moslem country.

Turkish people and Anatolian Turkey (without Kurdistan) are dangerously divided and polarized. There is no doubt that the AKP and many of its grassroots still constitute the dominant movement among Turks, but there are other sorts of Islamist Turks who are numerous and very unhappy with everything that happens; there seems to be a fermentation that is happening slowly but surely.

Today´s Turkish society, which is a result of Ataturk’s model of “new” Turks, has a very fragile composition and many questions to answer. It cannot withstand the harsh tests of history.

References:

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/1998/jan/17/turkey

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1402927.stm

[3] http://www.hilafet.com/html/bynlr/2012/0288.html

[4] http://www.hizb-ut-tahrir.org/arabic/

[5] http://www.questionsonislam.com/article/1-confession-faith-shahada

(“La ilah illa Allah, Muhammad rasoolu Allah.”). The Party has an official Face book page too: https://tr-tr.facebook.com/TurkiyeMedyaOfisi

[6] http://www.todayszaman.com/national_close-relation-between-hizb-ut-tahrir-ergenekon-exposed_182248.html

[7] http://www.milliyet.com.tr/hizb-ut-tahrir/

[8] http://www.haber7.com/guncel/haber/611527-ergenekon-sanigi-tegmenden-hizb-ut-tahrir-itirafi

Rebwar Rashed has a Ph.D. degree in Political Science. He has translated several books into Kurdish and also written many articles in Kurdish and English about the Kurdistan National Liberation Movement, human rights, anti-Semitism, equality between the sexes and ethnicities, and the need for a democratic and peaceful struggle.

Report: Kurdish PKK in Turkey to mint own currency

December 28, 2014 By administrator

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is readying to introduce its own currency, including banknotes featuring its imprisoned leader, Turkish media reported on Sunday.

Turkish intelligence sources earlier warned that the PKK had printed sample banknotes using a photo of its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, on the front face of the bills. Turkish media outlets shared a picture of a “Kuruş” banknote featuring Öcalan that was allegedly prepared by the PKK. The PKK expects Öcalan to be the one to introduce the currency at the 12th general assembly of the outlawed group, media reports speculated on Sunday.

Political analysts said the move comes amid intensified PKK efforts to win recognition as a sovereign entity. One interesting detail seen on the banknote allegedly designed by the PKK was that it read “Central Bank of Diyarbakır” in Kurdish on the bill. Diyarbakır is a province of Turkey and the PKK claims sovereignty over it as the future capital of a larger Kurdistan in the region.

Separate sources have earlier claimed that the outlawed group has illegally established its own monitoring and supervisory agencies, such as an independent ministry of finance and court of accounts. The alleged PKK move also follows a similar maneuver from another militant group in the region, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). ISIL announced plans in November to mint its own coins to be used in trade in the regions of Iraq and Syria that it keeps under control.

The PKK currency reports have arrived at a sensitive time. Tensions ran high in the southeastern town of Cizre early on Saturday as armed clashes broke out between members of the Patriotic Revolutionist Youth Movement (YDG-H), an affiliate of the PKK, and Hüda-Par, a Kurdish Sunni Islamist party.

The clashes between the PKK members and supporters of Hüda-Par — which is also known as the Turkish Hezbollah, though it has no affiliation with Lebanon’s Hezbollah — have raised fears of further conflict, while recalling bitter memories of the early 1990s during which the conflict between the two groups claimed the lives of hundreds of people.