Gagrule.net

Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide

Kurdish cities life under Terrorist State of Turkey

By

Diyarbakir, Silvan

Diyarbakir, Silvan

Dark smoke rises out of the Mescit neighborhood of Silvan on the 11th day of its curfew.

The neighborhoods of Tekel and Konak are also under the control of the special police forces.

Terrorist State of Turkey Special forces teams have taken over the area, not allowing anyone on the streets for days on end. The frustration of the locals has reached the boiling point against the state as they hold them responsible for the chaos and endangerment.

Several schools have closed and at least five mosques have been damaged in clashes. Families are abandoning their homes with only the clothes on their back, going to stay with relatives in safer neighborhoods where the curfew has been lifted.

One mother from the Mescit neighborhood told Today’s Zaman that she, along with her two children, was forced to leave her home due to the ongoing conflict between the Turkish security forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) . Asking to remain anonymous, she explained how in the first days of the curfew the security forces arrived at her home and ordered her to leave with her children immediately. She took her son and daughter and fled to the home of her parents. “My life has turned into a true hell,” she notes as she details the fright of her children amongst the sounds of explosions and gunshots.

“My little daughter began to cry whenever she heard a gunshot, particularly in the evenings. And in the following days of the curfew, I was instructed to leave the home on the grounds that the PKK militants were inside the houses. I was not even allowed to take our clothes with me. They didn’t tell us where we could go; they just instructed me to leave. I took my children and went to my family’s home in the Feridon neighborhood. However, my family suffers from severe financial problems and my father is disabled, preventing him from working,” she adds.

Another Mescit resident, Murat Kenan, spoke with Today’s Zaman on a street parallel to where the curfew is imposed, stating, “They [the police] break the doors of our home and enter. They have no right to do that. We don’t want a state that does this. They have ruined our homes. Everything we have they have destroyed.” He is the father of five children who cannot attend school currently. Several schools have closed and at least five mosques have been damaged in the clashes.

Kenan explained that his family is not receiving any aid from the state, “They don’t give us rent money, so we are staying with family.” His family has taken refuge at the home of his father-in-law. Kenan, like many other local residents, expresses great anger toward the state due to the worsening living conditions. “The prime minister and the president did this to gain votes,” he said.

Turkey: 3 police officers killed in car attack by PKK Kurdish Liberation Army

By

232871Three police officers were killed after the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) opened fire on a police car in the southeast near the border with Iraq, security sources said, the latest in a string of clashes in the mainly Kurdish region.

The southeast has been rocked by a spate of clashes with insurgents that has left hundreds dead since a two-year-old ceasefire between the Turkish state and PKK militants broke down in July.

Security sources said a wide scale operation against the PKK militants started after the attack late on Tuesday, and one police officer was being treated for his wounds.

Also on Tuesday, one Turkish soldier was killed and 20 others were injured in two separate attacks in the region.

Areas of the southeast have been intermittently subject to round-the-clock curfews in response to the conflict. Security sources said six people had died in clashes in the town of Silvan in Diyarbakır province since a curfew was imposed there eight days ago.

Last Thursday, the PKK ended a month-old ceasefire it had declared before the Nov. 1 election. That vote was won by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who subsequently vowed to fight the PKK until all fighters were “liquidated”.

Turkey: One killed, nine injured in PKK attacks in southeast

By

n_90935_1DİYARBAKIR – Doğan News Agency

Clashes with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) continue in Silvan, a district of the southeastern province of Diyarbakır. AA Photo

One person has been killed and nine others, including four police officers and a child, have been injured in clashes with outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in multiple provinces in southeastern Turkey.

A taxi driver identified as Mehmet Gündüz, 45, was killed, and five other people, including a police officer, were wounded on Nov. 9 in clashes with PKK militants in Silvan, a district in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır.

A police officer was injured after PKK militants opened fire at security forces escorting a caterpillar filling trenches dug by militants. Three other people identified as Abdulsemet Kesici, 50, Seyfettin Kurt, 44, and Kudbettin Çiçek, 44, were also injured in the clashes, while another person, identified as Mehmet Emin Çiçek, 70, was injured in rocket fire targeted at his home.

A committee formed of members from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the Democratic Union Party (DBP) conducted an inspection at the site where Gündüz was killed.

The clashes came on the seventh day of a curfew in the southeastern town, which has been in effect since 5:00 a.m. on Nov. 3 as a pre-emptive measure to protect civilian deaths during anti-terror operations.

In the southeastern province of Mardin, meanwhile, three police officers and a child were wounded in clashes between the PKK’s youth wing and security forces working to open roads closed by the militant group.

Security forces dispatched armored vehicles to Mardin’s Nusaybin district after the outlawed Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) seized citizens’ cars and lined them up in order to close roads to traffic at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 8.

A group of masked YDG-H militants arrived at Lozan Street in the Yeşilkent neighborhood and appropriated car keys from drivers. The group also fired at surveillance cameras to avoid being caught by the police.

While using the cars to close down Lozan Street, the group also built barricades on the side streets of the Yenituran neighborhood.

Police used armored vehicles to enter the streets and open the roads to traffic. However, clashes erupted when the militants attacked an armored vehicle with an improvised explosive device.

Three wounded police officers were transferred to the Nusaybin State Hospital for treatment, while 14-year-old Abdulselam Deniz was also injured in the explosion and brought to the same hospital.

In the southeastern province of Hakkari, two children were wounded on Nov. 8 after stepping on a landmine planted by PKK militants on the road connecting Hakkari’s Yüksekova and Şemdinli districts.

In a written statement, the Hakkari Governor’s Office said the children were collecting firewood at Şemdinli’s Korgan village before the explosion.

“Both children were initially brought to Yüksekova State Hospital and then transferred to Van’s Yüzüncü Yıl University Research Hospital via a military helicopter,” it said.

November/09/2015

Kurdish liberation Army PKK ends unilateral ceasefire in Turkey

By

23a7c0b7-de0b-479f-b57a-3489880b390dThe Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has ended a month-old unilateral truce in Turkey following President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s pledge to “liquidate” the militants.

“The unilateral halt to hostilities has come to an end with the AKP’s war policy and the latest attacks,” the PKK said in a statement carried by the Firat news agency on Thursday. AKP refers to Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party.

‘On war footing’

The statement came after Erdogan vowed to continue anti-PKK operations until every last militant was “liquidated.” It said the AKP had demonstrated it was on a war footing with attacks launched this week against the PKK positions.

The unilateral ceasefire by the PKK was announced following twin blasts that targeted a group of pro-Kurdish activists in Ankara on October 10.

It also came in the run-up to the country’s recent general elections, in which the AKP, founded by Erdogan, regained its parliamentary majority.

The AKP gained 317 seats in the 550-member parliament in the November 1 snap elections. It came five months after the AKP was stripped of its overall majority and subsequently failed in coalition talks with main opposition factions.

Earlier on Thursday, eighteen people were killed in clashes with the Turkish army in the country’s southeast.

The Turkish military has been conducting offensive operations against the alleged positions of the Takfiri Daesh terrorists in northern Syria as well as those of the PKK in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 20 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, which left 33 people dead and 104 others injured.

The PKK and Ankara had agreed to a ceasefire in 2013; Ankara’s military campaign against the PKK ended that deal.

On October 10, twin blasts also targeted activists who had convened outside Ankara’s main train station for a peace rally organized by leftist and pro-Kurdish opposition groups. Ankara said that at least 102 people were killed and over 500 wounded in the attacks.

Following the incident, the PKK called on its members to halt militant activities in Turkey as a move to avoid any violence that might prevent a fair election.

The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s.

Terrorist State of Turkey: Publisher Ragıp Zarakolu faces probe over interview with Roj TV

By

Ragıp Zarakolu (Photo: Cihan)

Ragıp Zarakolu (Photo: Cihan)

An investigation has been launched against publisher and journalist Ragıp Zarakolu on charges of being a member of a terrorist organization over a 2010 interview he gave to Roj TV, a Kurdish-language channel close to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

According to independent news website Bianet, the investigation was initially launched in 2010 by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and it was recently turned into a new investigation under “probes on crimes against the constitutional order.”

In a separate case, Zarakolu was arrested in October 2011 on terrorism charges as part of an investigation into the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), which is alleged to be an umbrella political organization that includes the terrorist PKK. He was released pending trial after spending five months in prison.

Prosecutors sought up to 15 years for Zarakolu on charges of “knowingly aiding and abetting a terrorist organization.”

He publish several books on Armenian Genocide and recognize Armenian Genocide.

Source: ZAMAN

Terrorist State of Turkey arrests some 1300 PKK-linked suspects, less than 271 ISIL-linked suspects since late July

By

AA Photo

AA Photo

While more than 1,300 suspects have been arrested for their alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and their affiliates since operations were launched following the deadly Suruç bombing on July 20, only 276 suspects have been arrested for their links to al-Qaeda or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), according to figures announced by Justice Minister Kenan İpek.

İpek, speaking to reporters on Oct. 20, provided a picture of Turkey’s ongoing operations against mainly the PKK, ISIL and the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which have intensified since the July 20 suicide bomb attack in border town of Suruç in southeastern Şanlıurfa province which killed 34 people.

“With effective work having been carried out since July 22 after the Suruç massacre up to today, 1,308 people who are members of the PKK, the KCK [the Kurdish Communities Union, the PKK’s umbrella group], the YGH [the Patriotic Youth Movement] and the YDG-H [the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement, the youth wing of the PKK] have been arrested,” İpek said.

“From members of Daesh [ISIL] and al-Qaeda, 276 of them, and 89 members of the DHKP-C and other leftist organizations, have been arrested. In total, 1,673 arrests were made,” the minister said.

“As of today, 271 Daesh members have been imprisoned, with 264 of them under arrest and seven of them convicted,” he said. Among them, 212 suspects were arrested after July 22, he added.

He noted some 1,463 people were released on probation after July 22, without elaborating.

After months of wavering Turkey agreed on July 23 following the Suruç suicide bombing which was blamed ISIL – an arch-foe of the PKK and its U.S.-backed Syrian affiliate – to partner with the United States in launching joint air strikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq. The military operations against ISIL in Syria and the PKK in Iraq on July 23 and 24, in retaliation to their attacks in Turkey on July 20, 22 and 23, were accompanied by simultaneous police raids in Turkey where hundreds of people with suspected links to ISIL, the PKK and the DHKP-C were taken into custody.

Four people were killed in a bombing at a Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) rally in southeastern Diyarbakır on June 5, only two days before the June 7 parliamentary elections.

On Oct. 10, a peace rally, where the HDP was among the organizers, in the capital was attacked by two suicide bombers, killing at least 102 people. On Oct. 19, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that one of the two suicide bombers in the Oct.10 Ankara massacre was Yunus Emre Alagöz, the brother of Şeyh Abdurrahman Alagöz, who was the perpetrator of the Suruç attack.
Soon after pounding ISIL positions in Syria, Ankara quickly turned its attention to strike the PKK in northern Iraq. More than 150 Turkish security personnel have been killed since July, leaving a three-year-old peace process in tatters and raising concern about the security of the snap parliamentary election set for Nov. 1. The government meanwhile claims to have killed more than 1,700 PKK militants in a relentless bombing campaign.

İpek, meanwhile, defended himself in the face of insistent calls from the opposition to resign due to his failure in the Oct. 10 attack and his behavior in the aftermath of the attack.

“A reflex of mine is still subject to debate. The main opposition party leader is still bringing to the agenda a reaction of mine upon the resignation question at the meeting,” İpek said.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has insistently called for the resignations or dismissals of both İpek and Interior Minister Selami Altınok following the attack.

During a joint press conference with Altınok and Health Minister Mehmet Müezzinoğlu, İpek was recorded smirking after a Reuters reporter asked if he was considering resigning from his post. The press conference was arranged only a few hours after the explosions in the capital city

The justice, transportation and interior ministries are held by “impartial” ministers in the run-up to the Nov. 1 vote.

Moscow doesn’t recognize PKK or PYD as terrorist organization announces Russian envoy

By

moscow-doesnt-recognize-pkk-as-terrorist-organization-announces-russian-envoy_10394_720_400Russian Ambassador to Ankara Andrey Karlov announced during an interview that his country does not consider the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to be a terrorist organization, a statement that will likely further exacerbate rising tensions between Turkey and Russia.

“We understand Turkey’s concerns with regard to global terrorism. Especially after the terrorist attack in Ankara the other day. But neither the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) nor the Democratic Union Party (PYD) are considered terrorist organizations by either Russia or the United Nations Security Council,” said Russian Ambassador to Ankara Andrey Karlov during an interview with Russian news agency Ria Novosti.

He added that while Russia had contacted Syrian Kurdish representatives, they did not have any contacts within the PKK.

The comments come at a time of escalating tension between Ankara and Moscow, after Russia initiated an air campaign in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad three weeks ago.

Having lobbied for Assad’s removal for years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has harshly criticized the operations, as well as the repeated airspace violations by Russian jets since airstrikes began.

Turkey also suspects Russia of lending support to the Syrian Kurdish PYD and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), since the air strikes began three weeks ago.

Turkey considers the PYD a terrorist organization, having links to the PKK. Ankara fears that any territorial gains by Kurds in Syria – let alone the establishment of an independent state – might incite similar ambitions from its own Kurdish minority.

“No one can guarantee that arms given to the PYD today won’t fall into the hands of the PKK tomorrow and be used against Turkey,” acting Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said on Wednesday. “Turkey cannot accept any kind of cooperation with terrorist organizations that have declared war against Turkey.”

However, during his interview with Ria Novosti, Ambassador Karlov explicitly denied that Russia had delivered any arms to Syrian Kurds.

Emerging as a reliable force in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the PYD has also garnered the support of the United States, with U.S. officials stating that the PYD is not considered a terrorist organization under U.S. law.

Both Russian Ambassador Karlov and U.S. Ambassador John Bass were summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara earlier this week to hear Turkish concerns over their cooperation with Kurdish forces in Syria.

Fourteen soldiers wounded in PKK attack in Turkey’s east

By

PKK-old-fighterSome 14 soldiers were wounded on Oct. 6 in an attack on a military post by the  Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the eastern province of Van, the Turkish General Staff said in a written statement on Oct. 7.

PKK militants launched an attack with long barreled guns on the Eşmepınar Gendarmerie Post in the Başkale district of Van, close to the Turkish border with Iran, also detonating a bomb-laden vehicle near the post, to which security forces responded with fire.

The statement said 14 soldiers had been wounded in the clashes and were immediately taken to hospital. None of the injuries were reported to be serious.

The statement also said “three terrorists” had been killed in clashes after the attack.

The General Staff said in a separate statement on Oct. 7 that 10 PKK militants had been killed after trying to break into the Aktütün Border Battalion Command Post in the southeastern province of Hakkari’s Şemdinli district.

The statement read that the militants had tried to infiltrate into the military post from three separate spots simultaneously but were prevented from doing so as the soldiers responded with fire.

Meanwhile, a military operation has been ongoing since Oct. 6 in the eastern province of Kars’ Kağızman district, with multiple armored vehicles being sent to the region for support for the operation against the PKK.

Commandoes with special ammunition were deployed with choppers at places on the escape routes of the PKK militants, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, adding that three PKK militants were killed in the first day of the operation in Kağızman and three were captured alive.

On the same day, a total of 18 people have been detained in anti-terror raids in the eastern province of Siirt and the southern province of Mersin.

Nine people, including Kurdish problem-oriented Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy candidate İkram Vural, were detained in Mersin on allegations of “organizing events in the name of a terror organization,” “forming the structure of the terror organization inside the city,” and “making propaganda in favor of the organization.”

In Siirt’s Eruh district, nine other people were detained in an anti-terror operation on Oct. 7.

HDP Eruh District Co-Chair Nimet Dayan and a number of district heads of the Democratic Union Party (DBP) were among the detained suspects.

The Kurdish PKK is Not a Terrorist Group

By

Kurdish-female-PKK-fighters-in-Turkish-Kurdistan-photo-tumblrCole Forster | The Gateway Online

The maintenance of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party on the Canadian government’s list of terrorist organizations is a bizarre classification given the recent nature of the group. The PKK in its current inception has very little to do with the terror tactics it occasionally employed in the 80s, 90s and early 00s. Correspondingly, the armed wing of the group is smaller than it has ever been, and with regards to Turkey is strictly engaged in insurrection towards military and police installations. If the PKK were today attacking civilians because it saw no other way to redress the grievances of Anatolia’s Kurdish population, then someone arguing for its blacklisting would have a ghost of a point. But this is simply no longer the case.

I proffer no defence of the PKK’s violent actions between 1984-2013, but I invite readers to remember the campaign of brutality and repression visited upon the Kurds in Turkey during those years. The history of Turkey’s “problem” minority is a tragic but resilient one. We are talking about the largest identifiable group of people in the world who don’t have a state of their own. A unique culture, with its own languages, traditions, heritage, and I argue, right to self-determination. But Ankara has always seen the Kurds as an impediment to Atatürk’s vision for an ethnically homogenous Turkey. And for decades the PKK has struggled against state repression in the southeastern quarter of the country.

It’s annoying that I have to waste ink clarifying the obvious, but I will do so anyways to avoid any charge of unfairness. The activity of the PKK in years past is disgraced by the harm that befell civilians. Killing non-combatants is never justified. That being said, I don’t think any thoughtful audience would consider Turkish soldiers complicit in the systematic destruction of an estimated 2,400 Kurdish villages to be pacific actors.

The chronological trend within the PKK has been concurrently towards a more tepid socialism and a deescalation of violent acts towards civilians and foreigners. In 2013 the group’s leader Abdullah Öcalan wrote a letter from the prison cell in which he is being held indefinitely, instructing PKK forces to withdraw across the mountains into Iraqi Kurdistan. This command was followed almost immediately and since 2013 the PKK has sought refuge in the Autonomous Region of northern Iraq. But this retreat has marginalized the PKK in terms of its ability to leverage in discussion of autonomy.

In blacklisting the PKK, Canada is echoing the Turkish government’s position that neither the organization nor its totally benign subsidiaries deserve a seat at the table. The fastest way to broker a peace in this conflict is to invite actual representatives of the Kurdish community to have a say in their own future. This necessarily means including the PKK.

The most compelling argument on this subject is related to the rise of ISIL in the neighbourhood. How can we label the PKK and her affiliates as terrorist groups and simultaneously depend on their bravery in the fight against ISIL? It seems self-evidently hypocritical to condemn the guerillas and then wager against the implosion of the region because of its actions. Remember, it was the PKK who shepherded the Yazidi Kurds to safety on Mount Sinjar. It was the PKK who shouldered rifles to restore Kobanî. And it is the PKK who settles down at night in the mountains of Northern Iraq and wait for the Turks to start shelling them from across the border.

And we repay our brothers and sisters in Kurdistan by taking Erdogan’s side. This great debt we owe tothe people struggling against ISIL on our behalf is reimbursed by freezing their assets, by pigeon- holing a vast umbrella organization for events that transpired decades ago. We recompense their bravery with our cowardice, with confused and dated classifications. As for solidarity, we have abandoned the principal.

Source: thegatewayonline.ca

Turkey’s police arrest 44 people in raids targeting Kurd PKK

By

198295Turkish police detained 44 people in Istanbul on Friday, October 2, on suspicion of links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in a continuing crackdown on militants ahead of a snap national election in November, local media reported, according to Reuters.

Fighting between the Turkish military and the outlawed PKK resumed in the country’s mainly Kurdish southeast following the collapse in July of a ceasefire and has reached an intensity unseen since the 1990s. More than 120 security personnel and hundreds of militants have been killed.

Among those detained on Friday were district officials of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish party which the government accuses of having links with the hardline PKK.

An HDP spokesman had no immediate information on the arrests. There was also no comment from Turkish police.

Among the 44 people arrested were union members and former district mayors, Turkish media reported.

In the predominantly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir, security sources said police had imposed a curfew in the Silvan neighborhood where two soldiers were shot dead by suspected PKK militants on Thursday as they left for work.

Reuters. Turkey detains 44 people in raids targeting Kurdish militants: media