BRUSSELS, — After Sirnak Massacre which accomplished by the American technological assistance and armaments, the Confederation of Kurdish Associations in Europe (KON-KURD) launched a letter campaign to the U.S. president Barack Obama urging him not sell further arms to Turkey. The campaign is expected to last until January 31th.
In the statement, KON-KURD and the other organising associations underlined Sirnak Massacres which was accomplished by the support of the USA. The USA has been providing Turkey with intelligence on PKK camps and movements. It has also deployed four RQ-1 Predator MALE drones at Turkey’s southern Incirlik airbase to fly over PKK camps in northern Iraq and provide the Turkish military intelligence.
The letter which is being sent to president Obama begins with a reminder of “the genocides and massacres that the Kurdish people have witnessed and also what the Kurdish people are facing today”.
The letter also stresses that “The Republic of Turkey, your strategic partner, is massacring Kurds everyday with the very support you give them whether it is military, political or economical. The very latest example of this is the most recent killing of 36 unarmed Kurdish civilians by F-16 Jets bought from the USA and intelligence gained from Predator Drones supplied by yourselves”.
Underlining that over 4 thousand people have been jailed by the Turkish government, the letter adds that “The Turkish Army, by using airspace that is controlled by your state, has massacred Kurdish civilians and ruined our landscape and yet you still have not said a word”.
The letter then underlined that for five months there has been no news from “the leader of our people Mr. Abdullah Ocalan who was actively kidnapped and handed over to the Turkish authorities by your predecessors, and yet not a word from your administration”.
The letter ends with some questions directly put to president Obama: “What have we, the Kurds, ever done to you or your country, what have we come against for you to declare us enemies? Or maybe this “democracy, human rights and freedom” are just part of a rhetoric only used to further the USA’s interests across the globe. What is the reason for this double standard? Why do you continue to support a state that bombs its own people within its own borders?”
And then underlines that Kurds “will not allow for Kurdish children to be massacred in this way” nor “will allow for history to repeat itself”.
The final sentence of the letter is a reminder to president Obama, “the Nobel Prize for Peace”.
“To play the role of peacemaker for the Kurdish and Turkish people – says the letter – whom we believe is also in the best interests for the USA. We believe that you have a positive role to play in bringing peace to Kurdistan, the Middle East and the World”.