Turkey is right to fight
Turkey is right to fight for an end to the PKK
The PKK must be stopped if Turks and Kurds are to make peace
Now the PKK is back. The Turks hate it. Everyone knows that there is a Kurdish problem and everyone knows that it has been made far, far worse by the PKK. It is a Maoist-nationalist terror movement, co-operating on the net with the Basque lot and Sendero Luminoso: it hates, it kills innocents, it deals in drugs. Defeated in the later 1990s, it is now back, and this time with formidable support. It has a dozen bases just over the Iraqi border, where there is now a Kurdish state-entity, protected by the Americans. From there, hit-and-run raids can be staged and the Turkish army cannot stop them.
The PKK is a horrible organisation. It was just about the last of the ‘national liberation fronts’ that made such a running in the Fifties and Sixties. Its model came from Vietnam, and the general idea was that a Communist guerrilla movement could get peasant support and the aim was a People’s Republic of Kurdistan. Its tactics amounted to Lenin’s ‘the worse, the better’ — cause chaos, in the hope that the police, overdoing repression, would drive neutrals into its arms. In the 1980s, to some extent, this worked. There would be some terrorist outrage, and the police would then break the wrong heads. Innocent peasants were herded into shantytowns on the edge of the cities, and the whole region is still studded with abandoned villages: 30,000 people have been killed, and there have been some notorious horrors — whole families, tiny children included, slaughtered; poultry farms machine-gunned; schoolteachers targeted (on one occasion the PKK offered to spare a pregnant wife, not long married; she asked to be killed, too, and they obliged).
Then in the 1990s the Turks became cleverer, and for a time the organisation skulked into hiding. Öcalan was caught in a dramatic operation in Kenya (he had been hidden in the Greek embassy in Nairobi, the Orthodox Church having distinguished itself by holding Sunday collections to buy Strela rockets from Belgrade on his behalf) and there were Europeans who tried to defend him. He waved them aside: the task now, he said, was to mend fences, to get Turks and Kurds to work together. True. But the existence of a safe haven just over the Iraqi border has complicated matters.
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Sehmus
October 24th, 2007 6:01pmI didn't read the article completely because you need to be neutral to write about two organization. You have already made your decision that PKK is a terrorist group. Question: What makes it a terrorist group? Asking right for 15million Kurds? Fighting with Turkish Army?
James
October 25th, 2007 7:11amTurkey murders Armenians-Silence Turkey Invades-Cyprus Silence Turkey Denies Kurds Rights-Silence. If the Bully is never confronted he is still free to Bully.
Dario
October 25th, 2007 9:50amTurkey has entered iraq 24 times in past each time has attacked few PKK bases in most of the previous times Iraqi Kurdish helped them. however none of these attempts were fruitful and PKK has gone from strength to strength. The best solution for PKK is Full amnesty for PKK fighter and lifting ban on Kurdish cultural activities. also creating an environment were Kurds can take their fight to parlament.at the moment Turkey is ruled by bunch of army thugs who only interested in provoking Kurds to strength PKK and in return tell Turks they are the most important people in Turkey because they protect the nation hence need to keep 70% of the nations budget.
Ray Wallis
October 25th, 2007 11:31amThe Turks are a nasty bunch of thugs with delusions of imperial grandure. The PKK is a perfectly legitimate freedom fighting organisation. It's that simple.
Broker
November 13th, 2007 2:03pmMy esteemed fellow commentators can clearly spell the words "thug", "savage" and "freedom fighter"... I wonder if they can spell "racism" and "moral relativism" too?
Leo Colgar
November 15th, 2007 8:41pmVery good. Thank you very much indeed. It is good to see someone in Europe being aware of what is going on...
not important
November 18th, 2007 8:38pmTo all those who have commented... how many of you actually know the history of what has happened in Turkish soil post the great war and during the revolution war? how many of you have had family, ancestors killed by Armenians when the men were at the battle field? The armenians revolted to the Ottoman Empire during the WW. They killed thousands of women and children in villages while the men were at the front. they fled the army and joined russian army to fight agains the ottomans. What was supposed to happen? should the ottomans have shaken their hand for all this? as for the kurds, they have done the same during the ottoman empire last years and also during the great national revolution war. and afterwards the pkk has killed 30,000 people most of which are civillians. they are an internationally recognised terrorist group. As far as Im concerned all you posting here either are ignorant or of ill nature and intention. either way, it is likes of you who speak without knowledge and with malintention that enable injustice to prevail in the world today. wake up and smell the coffee... i had 2 brothers killed by the pkk one was a soldier and the other just a civillian... i had 2 great great grandparents slain by the armenians during the great war. what justice are you talking about??? who is the bully???
Adam
November 18th, 2007 11:32pmThanks to Norman Stone for this informative report.I wanna add just a few points to here: PKK is not only a simple terrorist party but also an organization supported by internal external evil forces aiming to block Tukey's development. Throughout the history, the Turks knew how to overcome such evil plans and provocations, and will do so in the future. Besides, how come a Kurdish terrorist group having killed even thousands of innocent Kurdish women and children can be called legitimate? Just a little bit reason please..