The Defence Regions of Medya- Qendil Mountains: Speaking to AFP yesterday, the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) spokesman Ahmed Deniz warned that the guerrilla actions will spread to all cities of Turkey if the government insists on its war approach.
Deniz said that “Turkey is driving us to war. They are not honest about the Kurdish question and they don’t want to tackle this problem in peaceful ways.”
According to AFP, Deniz added that so far “all the steps taken by the government have all been empty steps”. Deniz made a direct reference to the so called “initiative” proposal by the government.
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.