INTERVIEW WITH MURAT KARAYILAN

"An approach like 'I will not recognize your will, I will solve it my way, I will even talk to some sections of the society but I will not speak to you' will not bring complete solution. Kurdish question and the PKK problem are like nail and tissue, bound together. Separating them will not develop a solution."
~ Murat Karayılan.

Zerkesorg has just finished posting a three-part interview with the leader of the KCK Executive Council, Murat Karayılan. It's fitting that this interview comes now, just a few days before the twenty-fifth anniversary of PKK's first armed attacks against the Ankara regime, and right before we are due to hear from Öcalan.

You can find the interview here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Let's do a little comparison and contrast between Murat Karayılan and the Chief of the Turkish General Staff, İlker Başbuğ.

From Part 1 of the interview, compare:

Stopping the operations is at the top of requests made by various factions. In fact, stopping the operations [against the PKK] is seen as the first and important condition toward solution [to the Kurdish Question]. We ask about operations and he [Murat Karayilan] says 'there are still operations conducted but not as much as before'. He adds, "which means the state can stop the operations completely and turn the no-attack [from the PKK] period into no-conflict phase. Together we can develop a phase for complete cease fire where everyone stays put at their locations. We demonstrate, with all our might, our will for developing this phase". Then he says environment for dialogue can be created.

Contrast:

The Turkish Army is determined to wipe out the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the military’s Chief of General Staff, Ilker Basbug, said on Monday.

“This problem can only be solved with the collective efforts of all nations and in particular allied nations,” said Basbug at the start of the two-day Silk Road 2009 General/Admiral seminar. “We believe that countries need to merge their positions and politics and adopt a common stance,”

“Our aim while fighting terrorism is to end all hopes of the terrorists and their supporters. We believe that alongside the fight against terrorism, state actions in the economic, socio-cultural, security, propaganda and international relations fields form a whole and complement each other,” said Basbug.

From Part 2 of the interview with Murat Karayılan, compare:

He reminds us the decision to pull outside Turkey in 1999. He himself announced to the PKK forces the decision to mocve them outside the borders of Turkey. He spoke to the forces for one hour. We ask him about his emotions during that talk. "If I put it honestly, I wasn't very hopeful. But our leader had asked. I was seeing it as a risky move but I was thinking it needed to be done. I remember it as a sad speech."

He tells about over 300 guerrillas were ambushed and killed while retreating to outside Turkey's borders. He talks about the traps, mass executions and massacres on the road [committed by the Turkish forces]. "But we still didn't change our mind and stood by our decision" he says.

He he asks a question and answers himself: "We didn't move for five years. Was any step taken? No! Was this period utilized? No! Now a lot people say that period was not utilized properly. We acted responsibly but the [Turkish] authorities of the time didn't act responsibly. The importance of our decision to retreat to outside Turkey's borders is being understood better today."

Contrast:

Gen. İlker Başbuğ said in Washington that Turkey's fight against the PKK will continue until the terrorist group is eliminated.

Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ vowed on Monday to continue the ongoing fight against terrorist attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) until the organization is completely eliminated, while also underlining the need for “winning hearts and minds,” along with the fight against the terrorist organization.

From Part 3, compare:

[Karayılan] stresses that they [the PKK] have been acting extremely responsibly and they would try their best to open the doors for any positive development. He wants to make sure what he says is not misunderstood: "Why am I saying these? We have to be realistic. If we are really going to discuss the solution, we have to consider these facts."

He says that wrong information is being distributed about their situation. Their persistence on solution [to Kurdish question] is being interpreted differently and that it's not realistic to interpret their persistence as they are losing strength. "We are not desperate. But we are saying now that let's stop the violence. This is a societal problem and it can be solved with dialogue, with modern methods. The role of violence in solving societal problems is over now. Now the problem is in a form that can be solved through dialogue and democratic means. This is our strategy."

Contrast:

Basbug said: "We would say that in 2009 we are having a chance with which we could achieve more concrete results in the fight against the terror organisation. What is this chance? You may call it the elimination of the terrorist organisation... or destruction... or weakening... we have now a chance. And we say, let's use this chance..We have seized the opportunity. The terror organisation is in a very difficult situation. We must profit from this opportunity." Basbug gave the following answer concerning the search for a dialogue: "The state won't establish a relation with a terror organisation, it won't have any discussions and there will be no dialogue. Sometimes it is being misunderstood, as if the state will have a meeting with the terror organisation, this is not true. This would be the biggest mistake in the struggle against the terror. The state does neither respect the terror organisation nor have any relation to it."

Thus it remains crystal clear where the violence is coming from. As Karayılan remarked in Part 1, "[The] Kurdish question is not a problem that formed yesterday. It's not a problem created by the birth of the PKK either. [The] Existence of this problem has given birth to the PKK." Additionally, PKK is not a separate issue from that of the Kurdish question.

A few other of Karayılan's points should be noted: First, Karayılan recalls the massacres of guerrillas by TSK when PKK moved outside of Turkey's borders in 1999. That's some history to learn, if you don't know it.

Secondly, there is no trust of the state on the part of PKK, so there need to be concrete steps taken toward a peaceful solution and no one should insist on immediate disarmament or movement of PKK outside of the region it inhabits now. Either insistence would be seen by the PKK as a first step toward Başbuğ's much recently touted annihilation.

Thirdly, everyone should remember that after the retreat from the borders in 1999, the KDP, PUK, and "international forces" worked as the proxies of the Ankara regime and also attempted the annihilation of the PKK. This point reinforces my belief that neither the US nor the KRG need to have any part in "solving" the Kurdish situation in Turkey. As Karayılan notes in Part 3, Kurds in Turkey have elected representatives so there's no need for two-timing outside meddlers.

Fourthly, for all the retards who still don't get it on the phony "separatism" charge, Karayılan says that even if independence were offered, PKK would not want it and he explains why.

I highly recommend a read of all three parts of the interview in preparation for Öcalan's Road Map.

On another subject, please check out the new podcast at Sibel Edmonds' place. This one features the CIA's former chief of base in Istanbul, Philip Giraldi. There's a lot of interesting stuff there about Turkish spies, Israeli spies, espionage tactics, the police state, and much more.