DM Monitoring
LONDON: The European Union on Monday extended sanctions on the PKK and the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C) terrorist groups for another six months as it updated its terrorist list.
The EU’s terrorist list has been renewed without any changes on the entries for a further six months, the Council of the European Union announced in a statement.
The blacklist list continues to feature 13 persons and 21 entities or groups, including the PKK and far-left DHKP/C, which are subject to restrictive measures.
Terrorist organizations, the IBDA-C and the TAK, are also placed under sanctions.
In order to combat terrorism, the bloc freezes the funds and financial assets in the EU of the enlisted persons and groups, and it bans EU operators to make economic resources available to them.
The EU applies a separate sanction mechanism for al-Qaeda and Daesh.
In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women and children.
The DHKP-C is responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in Turkey, including the 2013 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara.
Both the PKK and DHKP-C are listed as terrorist organizations by Turkey and the United States.
The PKK terrorist group continues its fundraising activities in Europe, the bloc’s law enforcement agency Europol said last week.
According to Europol’s annual European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2022, PKK organizations in the EU are coordinated by the Belgium-based European Kurdish Democratic Societies Congress (KCDK-E).
The report noted that the PKK terrorist group continued its propaganda, protest, recruitment and fundraising activities throughout Europe despite COVID-19, and that money was collected from European countries through membership fees, sales of publications, special events and campaigns.
PKK members were also involved in “organized crime activities such as money laundering, racketeering, extortion and drug trafficking,” said the report.
The report said that left-wing extremists from the member states have traveled to northeastern Syria and northern Iraq and received military training from the YPG terrorist group, which is PKK’s offshoot in Syria.
“Given the training and the battle experience acquired there, it is assessed that upon their return to the EU, such individuals have the potential to carry out violent attacks,” the report said.
