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PKK releases Turkish agents’ ‘confessions’ about Paris murders of three female members

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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The murders of three female members of the PKK in Paris five years ago were planned by Turkey’s intelligence service and would have received “high ranking” approval, according to statements attributed to two Turkish agents being held by the PKK in the Kurdistan Region.

Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan, and Leyla Soylemez were killed in Paris in January 2013. The PKK has accused Turkey of being behind their deaths.

The only suspect, a Turkish citizen named Omer Guney, died in custody in December 2016, just a month before going to trial. He had denied involvement in the killings.

On Wednesday, the Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), the PKK umbrella body, released statements from two Turkish intelligence (MIT) agents in their custody saying that the murders were committed by the MIT and received high level approval.

Approval would have to come from the director of the agency, captured MIT agent Erhan Pekcetin said, according to a statement published by ANF, a PKK-linked media outlet.

“I don’t think that he will decide himself, he will ask the president. Because these actions can create international problems,” he said, noting that peace talks between Ankara and the PKK were ongoing at the time of the murders.

Pekcetin also stated that Guney was involved.

Pekcetin and Aydin Gunel, “senior officials” from MIT were seized by the PKK in the Kurdistan Region last summer. The PKK released their photographs and details last week.

Thousands of Kurds held a march in Paris on Saturday demanding “truth and justice” for the deaths of the three women. Some also changed slogans against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who had met French President Emmanuel Macron in the city the day before.

Source: http://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/turkey/10012018

Turkish Journalist Association president demands freedom for colleagues on Working Journalists’ Day 145 in JAil

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Turkish Journalist Association (TGC) President Turgay Olcayto has called on the ruling party and opposition parties “to remove the barriers to freedom of press and expression, free imprisoned journalists and stop treating journalism as a crime,” in his Jan. 10 “Working Journalists’ Day” message.

Olcayto also called on other media workers, saying: “We need more solidarity [among each other]. Journalists should also stop targeting their colleagues.”

The association’s president also said almost one out of every three journalists had been left unemployed in the last 10 years, 145 of which were currently imprisoned, highlighting the dire situation of journalists in the country. Working Journalists’ Day, celebrated in Turkey since 1961, is supposed to honor the rights of reporters and other media workers in the country.

“As journalists frequently face legal challenges, their second address has become the courthouse. Journalists cannot practice their profession. And among our journalist colleagues, the membership rate in unions is very low. In Europe, this rate is at least 25 percent, whereas in Turkey, it is only 5.9 percent. The loss of blood in the sector continues as critical journalism is not allowed to happen,” Olcayto said.

“Publication bans, fines, lawsuits, detentions, arrests, censorship, and self-censorship have become daily occurrences. In addition, politicians label journalism a terrorist activity and journalists terrorists, which puts our colleagues into the crosshairs. Verbal and physical attacks on journalists continue. Despite complaints, these attacks, unfortunately, go unpunished,” he said.

Details Of Paris Killings Of 3 Kurdish Women By Turkey’s MİT Exposed

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(Left to right) Leyla Söylemez, Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan.

Pro-Kurdish Fırat news agency (ANF), which is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has released alleged new details about Paris killings on Friday and claimed that the execution order had been given by four administrators of the Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT).

On January 9, 2013, the outlawed PKK’s founding member Sakine Cansız, Kurdistan Information Bureau (KNK) Paris representative Fidan Doğan and Leyla Söylemez, who was a member of Kurdish youth movement, were assassinated in their Paris bureau. Suspect Ömer Güney died in prison on Dec. 17, 2016, just a few weeks before the trial.

The trial was planned to start on Jan. 23, 2017 in Paris High Criminal Court. However, the case was closed over Güney’s demise under suspicious circumstances. The probe into the murder of three Kurdish women in Paris has reopened later upon the appeal of lawyers.

“The massacre had reportedly come just a few days after an initiative to launch a new process of peace between Turkish government and the PKK. The process that was later dubbed the Imralı talks was just beginning. Before them, there had been the Oslo talks,” wrote the ANF.

“On January 3, 2013, a civilian committee had visited the Imralı island for the first time. Six days later, the bloody massacre in Paris occurred. The assassin was working for the MİT. He was a hitman, and was the only suspect under arrest. All signs he left behind were pointing to Ankara. The National Intelligence Agency, MİT, to be exact,” added it.

According to the report by ANF, “The MİT was there in the address he gave in code as he was planning his escape from prison. During the investigation, many other pieces of information were leaked. From a document that was leaked to the press on January 14, 2014, it could be understood that the execution order had been given by 4 administrators in the Turkish intelligence agency. Turkish intelligence claimed this document wasn’t genuine, but the document did have a wet-ink signature, and was included as evidence in the investigation file. Turkish officials refused to cooperate.”

“The document dated November 18, 2012 was signed by MİT officials Yüret, U.K. Ayık, S. Asal and H. Özcan. A document signed by MİT administrators showed that murder suspect Ömer Güney had been sent 6,000 Euros for ‘possible expenses’ and ordered to assassinate Sakine Cansız,” wrote ANF.

The document was saying: “In his last visit to our country to meet with us, the source was ordered to make preparations for people determined in the context of attacks/sabotages/assassinations against the organization targets in Europe and other such operative possibilities/capabilities, to acquire necessary equipment for his efforts, and to take maximum care in all communication with us, and has been paid 6.000 Euros for possible expenses.”

ANF’s report has continued to give details of assassination plan as follow:

“In a voice recording leaked to the press around the same time, Ömer Güney was speaking with unidentified MİT members to plan the murders. The date was January 12, 2014. The voice that was determined to belong to Ömer Güney was talking about assassination plans against Kurdish administrators. The two other voices in the recording were determined to be MİT members.

“The ‘final meeting’ that assassination plans were made according to documents and voice recordings was by early October, coinciding with Ömer Güney’s visit to Turkey. After Güney infiltrated Kurdish associations, he made many secret visits to İstanbul and Ankara. In the indictment, these visits were listed one by one with dates and times.

“The suspect had Sakine Cansız and many other Kurdish representatives in his crosshairs. The time when documents and voice recordings were leaked was also when Güney was planning his escape from prison. The murder suspect was planning to procure guns through his cohorts on the outside, and escape during his stay in the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.

“Years later, on December 17, 2016, the news of his death came from the same hospital. The case was expected to start that same month, but for some not fully explained reason, it got postponed to January 23.

“Later allegations were made that the massacre was planned during the Oslo and Imralı meetings, even that the members of the state committee in the talks were among the plotters. Kurdish journalist Amed Dicle’s book titled “2005-2015 Turkey-PKK Talks: ‘Resolution process operation’ against the Kurdish question’s resolution” pointed out that the order of execution was given during the Oslo meetings.

“The book also pointed out that the MİT members in the voice recording leaked on January 2014 were in the state committee that went to Oslo to meet with the PKK. The man mentioned in the book is code named Ozan, whose true identity hasn’t been confirmed, but is posed as a MİT administrator and was present in all meetings, from the first meeting in Geneva on July 5, 2008 to the last one in Oslo on July 5, 2011.

“According to Dicle, many people present in the Oslo meetings believe it was this MİT administrator code named Ozan in the voice recordings. The man in question was next to MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan in the Oslo meetings.

“New information that has surfaced months later confirm the previous. On the fifth anniversary of the massacre, On January 3, The outlawed Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that encompasses the outlawed PKK, issued a statement on the massacre, which also coincided with the fifth anniversary of the first committee visiting Imralı in 2013.

“With the information the KCK shared regarding the two high ranking MİT officials captured in August 2017, they exposed the name of the man who planned the Paris massacre: Sabahattin Asal. According to the KCK statement, he participated in the Imrali meetings in the name of the state along with Muhammed Dervişoğlu.”

The ANF report has stated that Asal is a MİT administrator. One of the four signatures on the confidential document dated November 18, 2012 leaked in January 2014 belonged to  S. Asal. This name announced by the KCK matching the name on the document and the same man participating in the Imralı meetings show that the Turkish government’s role in the Paris killings.

Breaking News: U.S. jury finds Turkish banker guilty of helping Iran dodge sanctions

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Hakan Atilla, senior Halk Bank executive, convicted by jury after trial

Hakan Atilla, senior Halk Bank executive, convicted by jury after trial

Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. jury on Wednesday found a Turkish banker guilty of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions, after a nearly four-week trial that has strained diplomatic relations between the United States and Turkey.

Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive at Turkey’s majority state-owned Halkbank (HALKB.IS), was convicted on five of six counts he faced, including bank fraud and conspiracy, in Manhattan federal court.

Atilla was also found not guilty on a money laundering charge. Jurors issued their verdict on the fourth day of deliberations.

Prosecutors had accused Atilla of conspiring with gold trader Reza Zarrab and others to help Iran escape sanctions using fraudulent gold and food transactions.

In several days on the witness stand, Zarrab had described a sprawling scheme that he said included bribes to Turkish government officials and was carried out with the blessing of current President Tayyip Erdogan.

Halkbank had no immediate comment. Attempts to reach Erdogan’s spokesman for comment on the allegations at the trial have been unsuccessful. Erdogan has publicly dismissed the case as a politically motivated attack on his government.

U.S. prosecutors have criminally charged nine people, though only Zarrab, 34, and Atilla, 47, have been arrested by U.S. authorities. Zarrab pleaded guilty and testified against Atilla.

“Foreign banks and bankers have a choice: you can choose willfully to help Iran and other sanctioned nations evade U.S. law, or you can choose to be part of the international banking community transacting in U.S. dollars,” Joon Kim, the acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement after the verdict was read. “But you can’t do both.”

The trial included testimony from a former Turkish police officer, Huseyin Korkmaz, who said he investigated Zarrab’s business and ties to government officials in 2012 and 2013.

Korkmaz said he was jailed in retaliation, and eventually fled to the United States, carrying evidence from his investigation with him.

Last week, Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul demanded in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions that Korkmaz be returned to Turkey, calling him “a fugitive, a terror suspect facing serious allegations.”

The Turkish government has said that followers of the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen were behind both the Turkish investigation and the U.S. case, as well as the 2016 failed coup in Turkey. Gulen has denied the accusations.

Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Alistair Bell

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-rallies/iran-deploys-revolutionary-guards-to-quell-sedition-in-protest-hotbeds-idUSKBN1ES0FI?il=0

Syria demands immediate withdrawal of Turkish and U.S. forces from the country

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Head of the Syrian Arab Republic delegation to Astana 8 meeting, Dr. Bashar al-Jafari, affirmed that the Syrian government considers the presence of Turkish and US troops on its territory as an aggression and demands immediate and unconditional withdrawal of foreign forces from its territory, Mehr agency reported.

In a press conference following the end of Astana 8 meeting on Friday, al-Jaafari said that the eighth round of the Astana process dealt with the agreement of de-escalation zones, especially in the province of Idlib, adding that the Syrian government considers the presence of Turkish troops on the Syrian territory as an aggression that contradicts what was agreed upon in the fourth round of Astana in last May.

Turkish Islamic preacher says men without beards may cause ‘indecent thoughts

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An Islamic preacher in Turkey has drawn a backlash after suggesting that clean-shaven men sometimes “cannot be distinguished from women” and can cause “indecent thoughts.”

Speaking on the private religious station Fatih Medreseleri TV on December 16, preacher Murat Bayaral blasted beardless men and said there is no need to receive permission from wives for a man to shave his beards, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

“Men should grow beards. One of the two body parts that separate men from women is the beard,” Bayaral is quoted as saying.

“If you see a man with long hair from afar you may think he is a woman if he does not have a beard. Because nowadays women and men dress similarly. God forbid! You could be possessed by indecent thoughts,” he added.

US judge bars disgraced Turkish Lobbyist Ex-House speaker Dennis Hastert from being alone with children

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Part of the photo, This file photo taken on October 27, 2015 shows,surrounded by US Marshals, former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert as he leaves the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by AFP)

A US federal judge has ordered that Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives in Congress, never be left alone with anyone under 18 unless another adult is present who is aware of his conviction related to child sex abuse.

In his ruling on Tuesday from Chicago, US District Judge Thomas Durkin also ordered Hastert to install software that records all his computer activity, from browser history to email correspondence and internet chats.

The judge didn’t explain why the new restrictions on Hastert were called for now, three months into his two-year period of supervised release from prison.

Durkin sentenced Hastert, once one of the country’s most powerful politicians, to 15 months in prison in May 2016 for a financial crime linked to sexual abuse of boys.

Durkin described the former congressman as “a serial child molester” during the sentencing.

Hastert, 75, is America’s longest-serving Republican House speaker from 1999 to 2007 and the highest-ranking politician in US history to have gone to prison.

Hastert pleaded guilty in 2015 to violating banking rules as he sought to pay $3.5 million to a victim referred to only as Individual A to keep him quiet about the sex abuse.

Hastert couldn’t be charged with sexual abuse because statutes of limitation had long since expired.

Among the conditions Durkin set during sentencing in 2016 was that Hastert undergo intensive sex-offender treatment, which is designed to gauge the risk molesters still pose to children.

One common treatment for sex-offenders involves a penile plethysmograph, which gauges a known molester’s physical reaction to specific images.

Hamshin Armenian activists released from Turkish jail

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Political activists Nurcan Vayiç Aksu and Cemil Aksu —both of Armenian origin—were released from a Turkish prison on Friday, reported.

Political activist Nurcan Vayic Aksu was taken into police custody on Oct. 19 after a house raid. Her husband, journalist and environmental activist Cemil Aksu, was arrested a few days later in the city of Artvin, for supposedly “praising crime and criminals” in his social media posts.

According to reports, Vayic is a human rights activist and a member of the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP). Aksu is the local co-chair of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and one of the editors of the Gor-Hemshin cultural magazine.

The couple is from the town of Hopa in Artvin, commonly known as the Hemshin (Hamshen) region, about 12 miles from the Georgian border. Both have been critical of the Turkish government, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Upon being released, the couple posted photos on social media with their eight-year-old child Arev, who was being taken care of by his aunt while the two were imprisoned

Kurds claim Turkish airstrike targeted refugee camp in Iraq

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Amberin Zaman

A mysterious explosion near a refugee camp harboring thousands of displaced Turkish Kurds has killed five members of a Kurdish militia and injured three others amid claims that Turkey was responsible for the alleged attack.

The administrative council for the Makhmour camp, southwest of Erbil, claimed late Wednesday’s blast was caused by an airstrike carried out by Turkey. The council, which is believed to have close ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), said, “It is significant that a camp under the protection of the United Nations, located in the middle of Iraqi territory was attacked. The Federal Iraqi State, the Kurdistan Regional Government and the UN will be clearly implicated until they issue convincing explanations on the matter.” But the statement failed to specify by what means Turkey had conducted the alleged aerial attack.

Kurdistan 24, an Iraqi Kurdish media outlet, claimed the camp had been struck by a rocket but also did not explain how it may have been launched. Earlier reports suggested the explosion was caused by a car bomb.

Turkey and Iraq have not responded to any of the accusations so far. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which provides assistance to the camp, has not commented either.

Leyla Arzu Ilhan, a former co-chair of the Makhmour Council, backed the claims of an airstrike. She told Al-Monitor, “Residents saw a flash in the sky then heard a loud explosion, so this points to an aerially launched device.” Ilhan said a structure housing local self-defense forces that were established after Islamic State militants attacked Makhmour as they swept across Iraq in the summer of 2014 had been targeted.

“Much of the building collapsed and we have been clearing debris to rescue two of our friends who were stuck under the rubble,” Ilhan said. “Now that we have buried our dead we will undertake a further exhaustive search of the debris for evidence.”

Ilhan acknowledged that an initial search around the site of the blast had yielded no material evidence that could help determine its source. She agreed that IS may have been responsible.

IS militants have used armed drones to attack Iraqi forces and the Kurds, be they in Iraq, Syria or Turkey, are among their archfoes. But Ilhan insisted that Turkey was the more likely culprit. She speculated that the alleged Turkish attack was meant to pressure the PKK into freeing two Turkish intelligence operatives who were netted in a sensational sting operation in September as they met with their moles near the town of Dukhan in Iraqi Kurdistan. “We can’t be sure but it’s a distinct possibility,” she told Al-Monitor. The men remain in PKK captivity despite protracted efforts on the part of MIT chief Hakan Fidan to secure their release.

A Kurdish-Turkish politician living in self-imposed exile in Europe took a different view. He argued that the attack was part of a broader pattern of emerging cooperation between Turkey, Iraq and Iran against the Kurds. The politician, who spoke on condition of strict anonymity, told Al-Monitor, “Ever since the referendum [on Kurdish independence] we have seen signs of these three countries reverting to their old ways of ganging up against the Kurds.” The politician predicted that “it is only a matter of time before Turkey and Syria reconcile and do the same,” pointing to last month’s wave of Turkish airstrikes against Asos Mountain on the Iraq-Iran border.

Turkey periodically rains bombs on PKK bases in the Qandil Mountains but the attack against Asos was a first. The pro-PKK Firat news agency claimed the strikes occurred after Iranian drones scouted the area and then passed on target coordinates to Turkey.

Makhmour has long been a Turkish bugbear because of PKK entrenchment there and every so often rumors surface of an imminent Turkish attack against the camp.

Many of Makhmour’s residents began fleeing military brutality in Turkey in the early 1990s, when the blood-soaked PKK-led Kurdish insurgency was at its peak. The militants have a firm grip over the camp, where giant images of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan are commonplace.

Some Western aid workers caustically refer to the place as a rest and recreation center for PKK fighters pausing from their ongoing battle against Turkish forces for self-rule inside Turkey. With its sand-colored cinderblock dwellings, multiple schools and convenience stores, the dusty settlement looks more like a small town than a camp.

Repatriating an estimated 14,000 Turkish Kurds who live in the desolate desert outpost was envisaged under now stalled peace talks between the Turkish government and the PKK. With few prospects of them resuming, it seems they will be stuck there for the foreseeable future.

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Turkish academic to be tried for signing peace petition

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Some 150 academics who signed a petition calling for peace in Turkey’s Kurdish regions are now facing trial. Uraz Aydin, the editor of the leftwing journal Yeniyol faces additional charges of terrorist propaganda.

A few days before his trial resumed, DW met 41-year-old Uraz Aydin in an Istanbul café. Nearly a year ago, he was among a group of academics who signed a peace petition. Shortly thereafter, he, like many others in the group, lost his job as a research associate at Marmara University’s Faculty of Communication. A new law under the state of emergency that went into effect in February 2017 provided the grounds for his dismissal.

It was a hard blow for Aydin. He enjoyed his job at the university and now longs for everything he had to leave behind after his eight years of research. He himself had studied communication sciences at Marmara University before going on to write his doctoral thesis at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris.

Aydin’s doctoral thesis explored how leftist liberal ideas are conveyed through Turkish columnists. “I am active in the union and have never concealed my leftist identity. But I did feel the consequences of this. While some of my students even got teaching positions at the university, I did not have such a position at the university.”

Life-changing signature

But Aydin could never have imagined how signing the peace petition would impact his life. He signed the appeal at a time when he and other academics felt they could no longer accept the prevailing conditions. “My friends and I have asked ourselves whether our signatures drove the country to where it is now. We set the agenda for the country. And then it took control of our lives.”

Last year, after many years of work as a research assistant, Aydin applied for a position as a lecturer and was actually promised a job. The next day, however, he found out that the names of the academics who signed the peace petition were passed on to the university council. “So my joy lasted only one day,” he said.

From that day on, he began waiting for the release of a list of names gathered under the state of emergency law. When he found his name on the list, he was relieved. “It was already clear to us that passing our names on to the university council would mean our dismissal. The waiting was a strain. It just makes you think, ‘Come what may.'”

Strength in solidarity

Aydin’s eyes light up when he recalls the day he went to the office to gather his belongings. The solidarity he received made him emotional. He was not able to take all the books he had accumulated in the past 29 years. Now in his forties, he felt a deep shock at having to leave the university he came to at the age of 19.

“The state accuses you of terrorist propaganda and you receive tremendous solidarity. It gives you the strength to carry on. But at times, you feel you’re the victim of a great injustice. Who is tearing me out of this place where I’ve spent so many years, and with what right?”

Uraz Aydin’s trial began immediately after his dismissal from the university. The prosecution states that the published petition is terrorist propaganda. A statement by Bese Hozat, co-chairman of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), dated December 27, 2015, is also being used as evidence. The KCK is considered to be the extended arm of the PKK, which Turkey has classified as a terrorist organization.

No fresh start abroad

Uraz Aydin has not considered starting a new life for himself abroad. He does not want to force his young son to experience what he himself went through. Aydin grew up in Paris, after his father had to leave Turkey following a military coup on September 12, 1980. It was not until the amnesty of 1991 that Aydin’s family was able to return to Turkey.

He says that while times are tough for academics in Turkey, he is convinced that he is on the right side. Then, suddenly, he pulls out a book: Nuriye Gulmen’s Turkish translation of “The Hesse/Mann Letters,” an exchange between Nobel laureates Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. The translator was also a signatory who lost her job and she is currently on a hunger strike. The quote that Aydin reads out loud from the book summarizes his opinion on the trial: “We are experiencing malice in all its horror. This experience, which we were forced to accept, makes us discover the good in our lives.”

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/turkish-academic-to-be-tried-for-signing-peace-petition/a-41647581