I'm a little confused, because the article later said the information came from an interview with a prisoner about prison conditions (not the arms trade). Moreover, the prisoner, Şemdin Sakık, is a former PKK guerrilla, who took amnesty from the Turkish state. Kurdish nationalists have accused him of producing propaganda for the Turkish Armed Forces. They seem to be right, too: his "confessions" (naming alleged "PKK agents" like human rights activist Akın Birdal) have been used as target lists for deep state death squads. Furthermore, a former Ergenekon agent has alleged that Hürriyet was an Ergenekon asset.
ANKARA-The claims made by Şemdin Sakık, a former leader of the terrorist PKK organization, that the PKK received weapons from Iran and Greece were excluded from a parliamentary report in order to avoid an international crisis.So, was the information genuine? Was the Turkish deep state using Sakık to fuel Turkish nationalist hatred of Greece, Armenia and Iran for (allegedly) helping the PKK, and of the (democratically-elected) Turkish government for "censoring" the "truth" (for deleting the deep state's lies from the report)?
The Parliament's Human Rights Committee members interviewed Sakık, who has been in prison for 11 years in Diyarbakır, as part of an investigative study of the conditions of Diyarbakır's prisons. Sakık said the PKK had foreign support and that Greece gave a Stinger missile and Iran gave a truck full of weapons to the organization in the spring of 1993.
Convening this week, the committee agreed to exclude Sakık's words from the committee report in order to prevent problems with the countries mentioned. If included, the report would otherwise require the right for the parties mentioned in Sakık’s remarks to reply. The recent development was also confirmed by Murat Yıldırım of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP....
"The relationship between the Ergenekon gang and the PKK was complex. Ergenekon used the PKK, Hizbollah and the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front, or DHKP/C. There are tribal and gang leaders from Turkey’s Southeast within Ergenekon. They will be unveiled soon," Sakık said in his remarks that were removed from the report.
He also said the leader of the Workers' Party, or İP, Doğu Perinçek, who is currently in custody for the Ergenekon case, had stayed in the prison with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan for a few days as well as with Professor Yalçın Küçük, who was also detained within the Ergenekon case but later released.
"A so-called supporter of Turkish nationalism and a so-called supporter of Kurdish nationalism stayed in the same cell for months," said Sakık. Küçük delivered lectures in Beqaa, a valley in eastern Lebanon where the PKK has camps, said Sakık.
"The PKK was born in Ankara, found supporters in the Southeast and gained ground in Syria. Armenia, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Greece have used the PKK. Iran gave a truck full of weapons to the organization in the spring of 1993," he said.
He also said following the PKK's cease-fire announcement in 1993, Iran took the weapons back, claiming the weapons were given to the PKK for fighting. "The PKK is supported by foreign powers but it was born in Turkey. Its roots are in Turkey," Sakık said.
But Sakık also connected the Turkish nationalist deep state with Kurdish, Islamist and Communist "enemies of the state" (the PKK, Hezbollah and DHKP/C). Has Sakık been "turned": was the Turkish government using Sakık to turn the Turkish nationalist community against the Turkish deep state, the Kurdish nationalist community against the Kurdish extremists, Orthodox Muslims against Islamic extremists, and Leftists against Communist extremists?
Investigating the drugs-and-antiquities trade through Cyprus, the evidence suggested two primary lines of alliances: Serbia-Greece-southern Cyprus-PKK-Armenia-Russia; and Kosovo-Bosnia-northern Cyprus-Turkey-Grey Wolves-Pakistan. Every day more information emerges; but often it only shows that the information that emerged the day before was unreliable.
Bozkurt, G. 2009: "Parliament censors arms report". Hürriyet, 19th February. Available at: http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=11033398.
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What about Iran?
ReplyDelete"Serbia-Greece-southern Cyprus-PKK-Armenia-Russia" + Iran?
You're ruining my beautiful theory! ;o)
ReplyDeleteIran does have links with Russia, but it is also an ally of Azerbaijan against Armenia.
Iran has the love-hate relationship with Turkey, too: it sometimes cooperates with Turkey to repress Iranian and Turkish Kurds, sometimes supports the Turkish Kurds against Turkey. (Does Turkey ever support the Iranian Kurds against Iran, or does the U.S. do that, so Turkey doesn't have to?)
Iran, Turkey and the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Lebanese Hizbullah and Afghan Mujahideen cooperated to support Bosnia against Milošević's Serbian regime. Obviously, that was tactical, rather than ideological. (Elsewhere, there was an unreliable, but believable, suggestion that this tactical alliance sent its paramilitaries, arms, etc. to Bosnia through northern Cyprus.)
I'm trying to identify the alliances of (drugs-and-)antiquities smuggling groups, rather than the alliances of states. I do need to make that clear, and to do it better; but the illicit antiquities trade may be one of the easiest illegal businesses to hide. So, I'm just trying to get a plan, an outline, of some of the structures that exist, or have existed.
Still, I do need to do it more clearly, better; fitter, happier, more productive, comfortable, not drinking too much, regular exercise at the gym (three days a week), getting on better with my associate employee contemporaries...