Turkish government officials have discharged recent arrogates by a Kurdish politician who said that the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has acquired control of hundreds of kilometers in Turkey’s southeast region as a propaganda campaign which isn’t in touch with the reality on the ground.
Selahattin Demirtaş, co-chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) that is described as political wing of the PKK, has arrogated that the PKK has accomplished field control on nearly 400 square kilometers of territory in Turkey’s southeast region.
But the government officials and sources from the Hakkari security forces have refused the validness of Demirtaş’ claim, describing it as just an attempt at propaganda.
“That’s just Demirtaş’ wish,” Hüseyin Çelik, AK Party Deputy Chairman, told on Wednesday, remarking on Demirtaş’ affirmation. “It is true that contractors can’t continue their work in an area where clashes are in progress, but that does not signify the area is under the PKK’s control,” Çelik added, mentioning that the Turkish state is in control of every inch of territory within its borderlines.
Sources in the Hakkari private security force have told the terrorist organization is accomplishing terrorist acts to get media coverage, thereby giving the false impression that it controls the region. “Almost every other day the PKK assaults police stations just to acquire media coverage, but it is actually just that a couple of PKK terrorists are firing from a distance and then run away and hide in the mountainous area,” the sources declared.
“For the last 45 days, an area 300-400 kilometers square from Şemdinli to Çukurca has been in the control of the PKK. All the routes outside the city borderlines are in the control of the PKK,” arrogated Demirtaş in his interview which came out on Thursday in Taraf daily. But analysts do not agree with Demirtaş’ claims. “This is just a big lie,” Mehmet Özcan, chairman of the Ankara Strategy Institute, has told “If such a big area is in the control of the PKK, then how come 318 PKK terrorists have been shot down and 5 anti-aircraft guns were annihilated in the operations in the Şemdinli region from July onwards?”
In Şemdinli, the PKK assayed, for the first time, to fight its positions against Turkish troops in a clash that endured for 20 days. In acting so, the PKK desired to build field control, and thereby give the impression to the world that in some portion of Turkey it had acquired control. But for Özcan, the recent snatches — as in the case of Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Hüseyin Aygün — bomb attacks and statements by BDP deputies are just efforts at propaganda which was designed to remove the trauma the PKK lived through in Şemdinli.
