“The PKK does not belong on the terror list”

The campaign for the delisting of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), launched in December 2021 by the Justice for Kurds initiative, continues at the international level. The petition for the removal of the PKK from the lists of terrorist organizations in the EU and the US can be signed online. In Europe, Kurdish organizations are promoting the campaign at events and with information stands on the streets.

The Kurdish Democratic Societies Congress in Europe (KCDK-E) is the largest Kurdish umbrella organization in Europe and is actively participating in the campaign with its member organizations. The co-chairs, Fatoş Göksungur and Yüksel Koç, spoke to ANF about the campaign.

Fatoş Göksungur stated that especially the local people’s councils and the women’s and youth movement are collecting signatures. “With the terror stigma in the EU countries and especially in Germany, legal political activities of Kurds are prevented. The criminalization of Kurdish institutions in Europe is always put in a context with the PKK. We work on a democratic and legitimate basis, but our work is blocked by the PKK ban,” explained Göksungur on the background of the campaign.

The co-chairwoman of the KCDK-E called this attitude of the EU states hypocritical: “It is unacceptable that Europe recognizes the Taliban and puts the PKK on its terror list. The signature campaign is basically a condemnation of this attitude of the EU. The campaign was started by international personalities who are convinced of the paradigm of Abdullah Öcalan and the legitimacy of the Kurdish liberation movement. As KCDK-E, we are participating in it everywhere in Europe, because the PKK ban is tantamount to banning the Kurds.”

“Turkish expansionism is legitimized”

Yüksel Koç said that the campaign initiated by world-renowned figures is of “historical significance.” He remarked that the Turkish state is basing its occupation and extermination attacks in Kurdistan on the EU and U.S. stance on the PKK and is itself legitimizing the criminalization of democratically elected politicians with the ban. This, he said, has led to the de facto abolition of the right to vote and the introduction of a ‘trustee regime’ in Kurdish cities and towns in Turkey. “The designation of the PKK as a terrorist organization allows Turkey to commit massacres and even occupy Kurdish territories abroad,” Koç noted, referring to a January 2020 ruling by the Belgian Court of Cassation that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party is not a “terrorist organization” but a party in an armed conflict.

“Therefore, the PKK must be removed from the list. Anything else serves the policy of Erdogan, who is a dictator with ISIS mentality, aiming at genocide. The decision to put the PKK on the terror list was made under pressure from Turkey and NATO at a time when there was no fighting and a dialogue on a solution to the Kurdish question had just begun. It is a political decision that prevents a solution. It also goes against human conscience because it was mainly the Kurdish movement that successfully fought ISIS and saved countless lives. The PKK does not belong on this list,” said Yüksel Koç.