The Defence Regions of Medya- Qendil Mountains: The Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK) declared in a statement that it is ending a unilateral ceasefire declared 13 months ago.
The PKK has been pressing the government to announce a truce of its own but the Turkish state and AKP government have failed to take necessary steps for peace.
“Despite our efforts to stop the violence AKP government and Turkish state followed political tactics to eliminate Kurdish freedom movement,” the statement said.
PKK declared unilateral ceasefire for 6 times since 1993, all were ignored by Ankara. Following the peace proposal by Kurdish national leader Abdullah Ocalan, the latest unilateral ceasefire was declared by PKK 13 months ago. But the Turkish military raids against Kurdish resistance movement have continued. According to the Kurdish Defence Forces (HPG), the defensive military wing of PKK, the Turkish army operations against guerrilla forces were counted 273.
Since 2009 Turkish police started a huge crackdown against pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) and jailed 1500 of its members. The statement said AKP government is responsible for “an upcoming tragic war”. Turkish military has been heavily bombarding the areas of the PKK’s presence over the past couple of weeks on the border territories and several clashes have taken place between the two sides leaving casualties. Last week the violence between Kurdish guerrillas and Turkish military left over 40 dead.
The Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK) was founded in 1973 as the result of the continuous and systematic oppressions and the denial of the Kurdish nation by the occupying powers of Kurdistan. The PKK took up arm in 1984 since all the possible political and diplomatic means applied for 11 years in between 1973-84 proved exhausted. The PKK however declared its first unilateral ceasefire in 1993 since it believed the arm struggle had hit its targets. Since 1993 to date the PKK has declared 6 unilateral ceasefires in 6 different occasions and called upon Ankara to solve the Kurdish problem in a peaceful democratic way.
Despite the facts that the PKK has declared 6 unilateral ceasefires and also it sent peace groups in two different occasions yet the PKK is considered as a ‘terrorist’ organization by Ankara and the US. It also continues to be on the blacklist in EU despite the court ruling, which overturned the decision to place the Kurdish freedom movement on the EU’s terror list. “By labelling PKK as a terrorist organisation, the EU and the US are giving Turkey a green light to target its civilians. They gave the Turkish government a free hand to do what it will, a mother of Kurdish martyr said”.
It should be noted that after 1954, apart from the Korean war in1949-52 and the invasion of Cyprus in 1974, the Turkish Army operations have continued to be exclusively against the Kurds.