Riled by a meeting between a US
official and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which controls
the Syrian town of Kobane, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
told Washington to choose between Turkey and, as he put it, the
“terrorists.”
A delegation featuring Brett McGurk, the
United States’ envoy to the coalition it leads against Islamic State
(IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), met the YPG over the last weekend in January.
The YPG took full control of Kobane late last June, in what was a
powerful symbol of Kurdish resistance.
“He [Brett McGurk] visits Kobane at the
time of the Geneva talks and is awarded a plaque by a so-called YPG
general?” Erdogan told reporters on his plane while returning from a
trip to Latin America and Senegal, the Beser Haber newspaper reported.
“How can we trust [you]?” Erdogan said.
“Is it me who is your partner, or the
terrorists in Kobane?” the Turkish president said, adding that both the
PYD and the YPG are “terrorist organizations.” Ankara considers them to
be part of the PKK, banned in Turkey as a terrorist group.
According to US officials, the trip
appeared to be the first of its kind to northern Syria since 2013. It
took place after the YPG’s political wing, Syria’s Democratic Union
Party (PYD), was excluded from new peace talks in Geneva. Ankara had
threatened to boycott the talks if the PYD were invited.
60 PKK ‘terrorists’ killed in basement in town of Cizre – Turkish media https://t.co/QMythI7mbV pic.twitter.com/zUIaJdOQYr— RT (@RT_com) February 8, 2016
The conflict between the Turkish
government and Kurdish insurgent groups demanding greater autonomy for
the large ethnic group has been continuing for decades. With several
failed ceasefires between the sides, Ankara has been blamed by a number
of human rights groups for putting civilian lives at risk in Turkey’s
mainly Kurdish southeast.
In August, Ankara launched a ground
operation to crack down on Kurdish fighters linked to the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK). The violence ended a two-year truce with Kurdish
militants fighting a guerrilla war for independence.
“Turks have a phobia of Kurds because
they are scared of their Turkish Kurds, some 20 million of them living
in Turkey,” Abd Salam Ali, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party’s
representative to Russia, told RIA Novosti, adding that “Kurds have
interfered with Erdogan’s plans in Turkey.”
“Islamic State has military bases in
Turkey, and is using it as a corridor. Turkey currently plays a role
similar to the one Pakistan played in the 1980s. When the Soviet forces
were stationed in Afghanistan, jihadists arrived there through Pakistan,
along with the money and arms,” Abd Salam Ali noted.
“Now Turkey is exactly the same corridor
[for militants in Syria], and it plays its own game. But Kurds appeared
to stand in [Ankara's] way. They have forced IS away from Rojava [also
known as Syrian Kurdistan]. There’s only one piece left, a 90km-long
territory between the Kurdish towns. If we force IS out of there and
reconnect the Kurdish cantons, Turkey won’t be able to influence [the
situation in Syria].”
Chomsky hits back at Erdogan, accuses him of aiding terrorists https://t.co/vsP62gjO77 pic.twitter.com/dk9RDxGWPD— RT (@RT_com) January 15, 2016
Late last month, President Erdogan once
again refused to search for a peaceful solution to the conflict, which
began back in 1984 and has taken at least 40,000 lives, mainly Kurds. He
pledged that “those with guns in their hands and those who support them
will pay the price of treason,” referring to the Kurdish militants,
deemed terrorists by the government.
According to Turkey’s General Staff, the
number of PKK members killed during military operations in the
southeastern districts of Cizre and Sur reached 733 on Sunday. But
according to Amnesty International estimates, at least 150 civilians,
among them children, have been killed during the Turkish operation, with
more than 200,000 lives put at risk.
Turkey’s security operations in the
mainly Kurdish southeast resemble a “collective punishment,” the human
rights watchdog said last month. Amnesty slammed the international
community for choosing to turn a blind eye to what Ankara has been doing
to the Kurds.
“While the Turkish authorities appear
determined to silence internal criticism, they have faced very little
from the international community. Strategic considerations relating to
the conflict in Syria and determined efforts to enlist Turkey’s help in
stemming the flow of refugees to Europe must not overshadow allegations
of gross human rights violations. The international community must not
look the other way,” John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe and
Central Asia Program Director, pointed out.
Up to 21 academics were detained by
Turkish authorities in mid-January for signing a petition demanding that
Ankara abandon its military crackdown on Kurdish rebels in the
southeast of the country. The petition denouncing Turkey’s military
operation against Kurds was signed by as many as 1,200 academics.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said they all sided with the
Kurdish militants, who are considered terrorists by the government.
“Unfortunately these so-called academics claim that the state is
carrying out a massacre. You, the so-called intellectuals! You are dark
people. You are not intellectuals,” he stated.
The original source of this article is RT
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