DM Monitoring
Ankara: Turkey has no “Kurdish issue,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, underlining that the government has never discriminated against anyone, on the condition that they have no ties with any terrorist group.
“I’ve said this dozens of times before and will say it again: There is no Kurdish issue in Turkey. We are here to defeat terrorism in all forms,” Erdoğan said in his speech to the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) parliamentary group meeting.
“We cannot ignore the fact that it is the separatist terrorist organization’s (PKK) armed and political representatives that are the biggest enemy of our Kurdish brothers,” Erdoğan underlined.
Erdoğan’s comments followed recent controversial remarks made by former parliamentary speaker and member of the AK Party Bülent Arınç, when he said that Osman Kavala, a Turkish tycoon implicated in Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) investigations, and Selahattin Demirtaş, the former head of the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP), both of whom are in prison on terrorism charges, could be released. Arınç’s remarks have been criticized by Erdoğan and other AK Party politicians.
Demirtaş defends terrorism and “has the blood of thousands of Kurds on his hands,” Erdoğan said, once again criticizing Arınç for saying in a recent televised interview that Demirtaş’s book, “Devran,” should be read to understand the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Demirtaş was detained in November 2016 along with other top figures of the HDP on terror charges after they refused to attend trials related to earlier cases they were accused in. He and his party are often criticized for their open support of the PKK terrorist group, which has been responsible for the killings of thousands since the early 1980s.
The president said that while the PKK kills hundreds and families protest in front of the HDP provincial building in Diyarbakır province in an effort to raise their voice against the terrorist group and be reunited with their abducted children, supporters of terrorism cannot be rewarded.
Erdoğan was referring to more than 150 families who have been holding a demonstration in Diyarbakır for over a year, as they state the HDP has been supporting PKK terrorists in recruiting and kidnapping youth.
“Otherwise, how can we look at the faces of the mothers whose children have been forcefully abducted in the mountains, and who were dragged to death, or at the faces of those who could not protect their families from the terrorist organization or live in security?” Erdoğan asked.
Erdoğan has frequently voiced that Turkey targets terrorists. He reiterates that it is the PKK and its affiliates causing the greatest harm to Turkish society and especially to Kurdish citizens through forcing them to pay tributes to the terrorist organization, while Kurds have often been oppressed and killed by the organization and their children brainwashed to join in their terrorist acts.
“Kurds have for a long time suffered most in this country; however, there was a problem in freedoms, rights, law and justice faced by the whole people,” Erdoğan said.
