Turks-Koerdisch conflict#3 PKK dreigt met aanslagen badplaatsenTurkije

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Op donderdag 24 juni 2010 16:22 schreef Burakius het volgende:
Koerden en Turken zijn broeders en niemand moet ons uit elkaar halen.

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Turkey’s Deception

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s self-righteous proclamations in defense of the Palestinian Islamist terrorist group Hamas — (i.e. “Hamas is not a terrorist group,” “Hamas are resistance fighters who are struggling to defend their land, and they have won an election,” etc.) — are glaringly hypocritical and in accord with his Islamist ideological bent. Erdogan has become sufficiently confident in the wake of his July 2007 electoral victory. His Justice and Development party, known as AKP, received 47% of the vote, enabling him to form a single-party government, and he has since sought to forge an Islamic agenda for Turkey. His actions reveal his intent to lead the Arab and Muslim East while gambling that the Obama administration and the European Union will ignore his Islamist rhetoric and his increasingly radical actions. Aside from becoming a champion of Hamas, he is charting a course towards a revival of Ottoman hegemony by restoring the seat and center of the Caliphate.

The United Arab Emirate-based online news source, The National, reported on June 15, 2010, that “Turkey embarked on the road to a ‘Middle East Union’ as an alternative to the European Union.” The National quoted from a front page article that appeared in the Turkish daily Milliyet regarding the signing of a free-trade agreement between Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

A speech given by President Obama before the Turkish parliament in April 2009, during which Obama declared, “Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not and will never be at war with Islam,” encouraged Erdogan to ramp up his efforts. Erdogan, no doubt, is also counting on the European lack of moral courage. As such, he was able to provoke a crisis with Israel by funding and indirectly arming the flotilla that sought to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, and essentially call for jihad against Israel. Neither Obama nor the Europeans have rebuked him for his repeated egregious behavior. Moreover, Erdogan has derived a backwind from the vacuum created by the perception of weakness of the Obama administration, coupled with Obama’s toughness against Israel – the only democratic ally in the region – rather than towards Iran.

While Hamas has been pitied and cuddled by Obama, the Europeans, the UN, and human rights organizations, there has been no condemnation of the Turkish regime (nor, for that matter, against the Islamic Republic of Iran) by the US and the West for the continued war on the Kurdish people in Turkey, Iran, and Iraqi Kurdistan. According to a CNN-TV December 19, 2007 report, “the US helped in attack on PKK.” The ostensible reason for the war against the Kurdish people is the Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) terrorism. Neither the Western powers nor the UN ever took Turkey to task over the lives of thousands of innocent Kurds killed in the process. And while the PKK might have used guerilla warfare against the Turkish authorities, unlike Hamas, it rarely employed suicide bombers or attacked civilians. The double-standard is apparent, Saudi petro-dollars helped to smooth the Arab-Palestinian image while overlooking its jihadist nature. At the same time, the friendless Kurds have no petro-dollar patrons to count on.

Western hypocrisy is quite apparent. While Hamas (1.2 million Palestinians) openly opposes Israel’s existence and has been dedicated, since its inception and as stated in its Charter, to the destruction of the Jewish State through war and terrorism, the PKK has been fighting Turkey since 1984. Initially they demanded a separate state for Turkey’s approximately 15-20 million Kurds, and later, were will to compromise and moderate their demands to cultural and political rights for Kurds. Hamas has received funds from EU countries and material support from EU based Non-Governmental Organizations. The British daily newspaper, The Independent, reported back on February 19, 2009 that “Europe began covert talks with Hamas.” No such privileges were accorded to the PKK or the persecuted Kurds of Iran, Syria, and Turkey. According to the Sabah-English edition of June 12, 2010, “Europe began staging war on PKK.” New provisions of EU anti-terrorism laws state that PKK terrorists residing in European nations will be extradited, and that Turkish police officers will receive special training on the extradition of terrorists. In addition, the EU Border Protection Agency (Frontex) is stepping in to curtail the PKK’s financial resources. Will the EU use the same parameters to deal with Hamas?

In using Erdogan’s logic that Hamas deserves recognition because it won the 2006 elections, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) deserves equal recognition following its successful showing in the 2009 local Turkish elections. The DTP gained overwhelming support in the Kurdish areas of Turkey, and came a close second behind the ruling AKP. And while Israel did not interfere or prevent Hamas from taking part in the 2006 elections and select their own representatives, despite Hamas’s unwillingness to renounce terrorism and recognize Israel, Erdogan proceeded to ban the DTP, charging that it constituted “a focal point of terrorism.” In addition to banning the DTP, Erdogan’s government imprisoned dozens of DTP members, and banned its leaders from political activities for five years. The Kurds in Turkey then reorganized their party under a new name, the “Peace and Democracy Party” (BDP), and once again, the Erdogan government harassed and imprisoned the BDP members while trying to ban the new party from running in upcoming elections.

Erdogan’s Turkey has refused to accept legitimate pro-Kurdish parties or accept the PKK as a key player in solving the Kurdish question, despite a number of unilateral ceasefires declared by the PKK since the 1990s, which Turkey ignored. Erdogan is demanding that PKK fighters surrender or die. Both Erdogan and Hamas have rejected compromise.

It is time to challenge Erdogan’s hypocritical stand, and it must come from the West, which has for too long colluded with this Turkish Islamist regime and the Islamic terrorist group Hamas. The West is employing a dangerous double-standard when it comes to Israel and the PKK.

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Op vrijdag 25 juni 2010 10:14 schreef Haradrim het volgende:
Members of an outlawed terrorist organization killed two Turkish soldiers and a civilian and wounded six other people, including three civilians, in an attack late Thursday on a military outpost in eastern Turkey, Turkish media reported.

The terrorists attacked a patrol and the outpost not far away in a rural area in the province of Elazığ, the Anatolia news agency and broadcaster NTV said.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, has dramatically stepped up violence this month, threatening to spread its attacks outside of the country's Southeast, its main area of operation.

PKK attacks have claimed the lives of 19 soldiers and two civilians since last weekend.

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Op vrijdag 25 juni 2010 14:04 schreef paddy het volgende:

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Wat is dat voor onzin? Ik vind elke aanslag bewust gericht op onschuldige burgers belachelijk. Dus jij vindt het normaal dat ik een aanslag op jou en je gezin pleeg omdat ik het niet eens ben met de Nederlandse regering? (of de regring waar jij woont)

Mijn zoon gaat met zijn vriendin dus naar één van die oorden. Hij is jong en vond het al belachelijk dat ik mij zorgen maakte omdat zijn naam Geert is, en dus bang was voor een doorgedraaide die in elke Geert Geert Wilders zag.

Nu komt dit gedoe er nog bij. Zal mijn overbezorgdheid wel zijn, maar ik zal blij zijn wanneer hij en zijn vriendin weer thuis zijn. en ze zijn nog niet eens vertrokken

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Turkish PM sides with Hamas, but kills so-called Kurdish terrorists

Erdogan committed to moving country away from well-established links to the West as he promotes increasingly puritanical view of Islam.

By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun

It is often a symptom of the affliction that hypocrites are blind to their own hypocrisy.

So there was no hint of self-critical irony on Thursday when Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a blistering attack on European countries for failing to support his war against separatist Kurdish rebels.

"Despite bloody attacks against civilians and security forces [in Turkey], there are countries which have failed to cut the financial channels of the terrorist organization, turning a blind eye to its activities and propaganda, and failed to extradite criminals," Erdogan said. He was referring, of course, to the Kurdish Workers' Party known as the PKK, which represents many Kurds living in southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and northwestern Iran and which has been fighting for a homeland since 1984.

Erdogan's outburst followed a bomb attack on a bus in Istanbul on Tuesday that killed four soldiers and a teenage girl.

This followed a series of attacks in the last two months by the Turkish air force and army commandos on PKK camps in northern Iraq. The Turkish military says it killed more than 120 rebels and lost 42 of its own troops.

These attacks marked the end of a much-trumpeted, but feebly implemented, effort by the Erdogan government to find a lasting settlement with Kurds.

What is so striking about Erdogan's words and actions is that they are being played out at the same time as he is railing against Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, aimed at stopping arms getting to the territory's ruling clique, Hamas, to use against Israeli civilians.

And his bluster against Europe for failing to support him against the PKK, which the European Union recognizes as a terrorist organization, sits uncomfortably beside Erdogan's clear support and perhaps prior approval of the dispatch last month of a so-called relief flotilla from Turkey to Gaza.

The Turkish organizers of the flotilla, the Humanitarian Relief Fund known as IHH, has documented links to terrorist groups, and Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by most western counties.

Erdogan's antics have led to a sharp fissure in Turkey's relations with Israel, which were both diplomatically and militarily close; to calls from conservatives in the United States for Turkey, the only predominantly Muslim member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to be expelled from the alliance; and to the lessening of Turkey's already shrinking chances of joining the European Union.

But Erdogan seems committed to moving Turkey away from its well-established links with the West as he promotes increasingly puritanical views of Islam within Turkey and appears bent on trying to make his country an overtly influential player in the Middle East.

Erdogan's melodramatic outrage when nine Turkish IHH members were killed after they attacked Israeli commandos who stopped the main Gaza convoy ship, the Mavi Marmara, initially won him much support at home and in Arab countries.

But that appears to have quickly eroded in some significant areas.

Media and commentators in the Middle East, where there are still unhappy memories of Turkey's Ottoman Empire, are beginning to question whether the Ankara government is a suitable alternative voice on a stage increasingly dominated by Iran.

For many Arabs, the main ethnic group of the Middle East, having the Persians of Iran and the Turks squabbling to be their champions presents an unappetizing choice.

And at home two recent polls show a sharp rise to over 30 per cent of Turks supporting the opposition Republican People's Party, a centre-left alliance known by its Turkish initials CHP that appeals to the urban middle class and white-collar workers and which holds strongly to Turkey's traditional secularism under military guardianship.

This still puts Erdogan's Justice and Democracy Party, in power since 2003, ahead with nearly 39 per cent support. Elections are due next year.

So far the up-tick in support for the CHP is a result of its realignment under the new leadership of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who took over last month after previous leader Deniz Baykal resigned over a sex scandal.

But the CHP is one of Turkey's oldest and most experienced political parties. Erdogan will have to fight for political survival with a good deal more sophistication than he has shown recently.