Sunday, November 04, 2007

TURKISH POWS RETURN HOME

"I am making a request to Mr. Erdogan. The PKK will not end, you are making a mistake. Propose a way out, we are open to any kind of democratic solution."
~ Abdullah Öcalan.


The release of the prisoners of war held by HPG since 21 October went off without a hitch early this morning in South Kurdistan, and RojTV featured the handover in its Kurdish-language and Turkish-language news reports.

Representatives of the KRG Interior Ministry as well as DTP parliamentarians Aysel Tuğluk, Osman Özçelik, and Fatma Kurtulan received the POWs at an undisclosed location in the Medya Defense Zone. During the handover, Fatma Kurtulan noted that DTP had been the first to try to introduce a discussion of the POWs domestically, within the TBMM, but that AKP and the other parties ignored the situation. The AKP claimed there weren't sufficient funds available to arrange a committee to look into the issue of securing the release of the POWs. Apparently, the POWs were not considered important enough for AKP to concern itself with.

The POWs looked relaxed and in excellent condition and they acknowledged that they had been treated very well by HPG fighters. Naturally, this led them to change their perspective on the PKK because their experience was nothing like Turkish propaganda had led them to expect. They mentioned that they intended to tell the truth of their experience when they returned to Turkey, but I wouldn't bet on seeing much of that in Turkish media. On the other hand, word will spread among their families and friends.

I can guarantee you that if these had been PKK fighters in the hands of the Ankara regime, you would never see them again. They would be tortured to death or executed after having laid down their weapons. The Ankara regime is not civilized in the least. In this way, it resembles the American regime. Think extraordinary rendition. Think water-boarding. Think Guantanamo.

In the meantime, the Turkish General Staff posted a notice on its website that the "lost" soldiers have returned to their units. That's a case of the Deep State being in Deep Denial.

Interestingly enough, Turkish media is running reports of Erdoğan's attempted censorship of the POW story within Turkey. Apparently he had attempted to put a ban on the story through RTUK, to prevent Turkish media from broadcasting information on the POWs. However, the Turkish Court of Appeals refused the ban.

Erdoğan tried to use the excuse of "domestic security" in calling for the censorship. I guess, in this case, the Turkish judiciary didn't feel like embracing state secret's privilege.

Once handed over to the KRG Interior Ministry and the DTP parliamentarians, the former POWs were taken to Hewlêr. Since Turkey pretended until the last minute that the soldiers were "lost," there were no Turkish officials present in Hewlêr to receive the soldiers. Instead, they were handed over to the American military, who transported them by air to Mûsil, and then from Mûsil to the Turkish airbase at Bamerni, South Kurdistan. At that point, the soldiers were handed over to Turkish officials.

Bugün adds that the Iraqi Defense Minister and American General David Petraeus were on board the aircraft with the soldiers.

Back at Qendil, Murat Karayılan had something to say about the release of the Turkish POWs:


"We released the soldiers in order to send the message that we don't want to resolve the Kurdish question with violence and war, but in a peaceful way. With this message, we want to declare to the entire world that we want to solve the Kurdish question in democratic ways. If the Turkish government takes a positive step and stops its attacks, the clashes and war will reach an end. This situation will bring an historic era, and a democratic and peaceful resolution."


The bottom line: PKK offers an opportunity for a peaceful resolution while ever ready for legitimate self-defense.

On Saturday, PKK issued a warning to Syria for its attacks against Kurdish demonstrators in Qamişlo and Kendela, West Kurdistan, that left three Kurdish demonstrators dead and five wounded. Kurds had been protesting against a Turkish invasion of South Kurdistan and against Turkish poisoning of Öcalan.

Ever the toady, Ba'ath leader Beşar Esad had visited Ankara earlier and declared his regime's support for a Turkish invasion of South Kurdistan.

The Syrian military should be an absolute pushover for PKK.

In a related item, DozaMe has an ironic point to make about the US administration's Axis of Evil.

And if you think Erdoğan's bad about his attempted censorship of HPG's former Turkish POWs, take a look at the censorship attempt against Hevallo by a stupid Dutch fascist.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

PKK killed Turkish soldiers on "Turkish land" by a "terrorist" attack and captured some of the like they have done for years and you want us to be thankful for releasing them? PKK is not a fighter just cold blooded murderes. The have been killing officers, immocent people, teachers, doctors on the region. My ousin was an innocent teacher working for to educate people there. One day they ambushed his bus and killed hm with some other passengers just because he was being a teacher of Turkish state. Is that the fighters do? Is that the fighters with honor you tell about. There is no such a place like Turkish Kurdistan. My mother's family came from Macedonia and father's from Syria to Anatoli after the World War 1. As Turkish, Kurdish, Syriani or any ethnicity we have fought for this land and established the State of Turkeyin Misakı Milli borders. No matter comming from what ethnicity we are proud to be Turk. Ther is no discrimination against Kurds. I have attended the lawschool with many Kurdish ethnicized students. They have been lawyers, judges, public prosecuters now. How come there should b discrimination if there are so many Kurdish ethnicised officers on this country? PKK is like a crybaby trying to impose that there is a discrimination in TR like the black-white discrimination in USA before1960s. But PKK will not be successful. We will not let them take any peace of land with Kurdistan thesis. In one of your article you gave a quote about not messing up with Kurds. Also do not mes with Turks. Thousands of Turks applied to military to defend our country to PKK TERRORISTS. We are brave and ready to be one to defend our land and borders to killers.

Anonymous said...

Oh, cut the turrkish propaganda bull**** ...Only thing that needs to be pointed out to you is: You've been trying killing off PKK for the last 30 years...What makes you think you will succeed now, in a time where Kurds everywhere are united more than ever?

On a side note, I need that stuff you link to in this article, in ENGLISH! It's hard telling someone to "go check for yourself" if the news are in Turkish...an "official" source in English is needed.

Anonymous said...

In response to series of comments on the last post "8 Gifts.."

I think Kurds are the losers here again from Northern to Southern Kurdistan.

Whether or not the soldiers were released today or next year, the outcome is the same for the PKK. Have a look at statements by Bush today. He claims the release was a victory against the big bad PKK and that it shows the progress being made in their fight against the PKK.

Very few media outlets revealed this news as a gesture of good will by the PKK.

A different avenue should have been pursued in order for Kurds to try and gain more leverage. Everyone else was able to make themselves look good as a result of this release, and once again, they all tried to demonize the PKK and painted a false story as if they had no choice but to give up these 8 gifts...

Anyways, what does this mean for DTP now? The fascists an Ankara have pursued the predictable and are now trying to blame them for playing a role in the release (instead of thanking them like they should)

Mizgîn said...

Sorry, Johnny Faxe, Ozgur Gundem and Bugun don't have those articles in English. If you need this news in English, you could print the articles in question and take them to a professional translation service. Alternatively, you could take a few years to learn Turkish and then do it yourself.

I could spend all night translating everything for you, but I'm not a legitimate source so how would you know that I'm telling you the truth? That's why I suggest you use a professional.

As for "official" English sources, you can probably find those at any US government site. The US government the official source of news for the NYT, WSJ, WaPo,LA Times, and all the other state propaganda organs. But if you really want to know what's going on, relying solely on "official" English sources means you're screwed.

Anonymous, so again, everything is pointless, right? If not, what exactly would YOU have done if YOU were running KCK? What will gain any leverage?

I've got news for you, ALL non-Kurd media outlets view ALL Kurds as the enemy--No exceptions. It's been especially bad for the last couple of weeks and it will continue to be bad, if not get worse.

As for DTP, without doing anything, they are targeted because the fascists are going to do what the fascists are going to do. You cannot change fascists so it doesn't matter what DTP does or doesn't do. This gives them (and us) a choice: you either do what you think is right and tell everyone else go to hell, or you dance to the tune each one plays for you and remain a slave for your entire life.

In that choice lies all freedom.

Maybe you could blog and start dissecting some of the shit that passes for "official" state propaganda. We could use a hell of a lot more people doing this, you know.

Believe me, doing just a part is a full-time job.

Anonymous said...

Hevala Mizgin, I know you don't do it for thanks from 'anonymous'es out there - you do it for Kurds and for justice - but from one such anonymous - Gelek, Gelek Spas. Thank you. I know it must be insanely time-consuming and frequently demoralizing to keep fighting and writing and gathering and combating. So thank you. They're reading you in Amed, they're reading you in LA, they're reading you in Chicago and Amsterdam and undoubtedly a thousand places. You're the only blog bookmarked on my computer, û bi rastî em spasdar man.