The ongoing crackdown on Kurds in southeastern Turkey shows that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is working to set up a dictatorship in the country, Hatip Dicle, the co-chair of Pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Congress (DTK), told Sputnik in an interview.
“They [the Erdogan government] call it a “presidential form of government,” but in fact it’s pure dictatorship. The Turkish government wants to formally introduce the dictatorial form of government in the country,” Dicle said.
The Kurdish issue is getting worse every day. People in the country are worried and want to know what steps Erdogan’s government would take next after an attack, allegedly carried out by Kurds, last night in the province of Diyarbakir.
Official PKK representatives said they would like to sit at the negotiation table with the government. The PKK also intends to keep pushing for the idea of democratic autonomy for Kurds living in Turkey.
“We never said that by asking for democratic autonomy we refuse to discuss how this process should take place. On the contrary, we want to find a democratic solution that would bring peace,” Dicle told Sputnik.
Currently, the government is waging an all-out war against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Turkish military is criticized for the use of excessive force, which has resulted in the death of over 100 innocent civilians since the start of the anti-Kurdish operation in July 2015.
The situation in the Kurdish-populated regions is dire. For example, in the town Cizre, Sirnak Province, tanks were positioned in the streets, fire fights constantly are taking place and artillery fire has turned buildings into ruins.
“Many quarters of the town turned into continues trenches. A similar tactic of a constant tank shelling was used when destroying Jewish quarters by Hitler forces,” Dicle described the situation in Sirnak.