Many Kurdish politicians, including former MPs and NGO representatives, who had to move to Europe because they couldn’t do politics in Turkey, are targeted by the Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MİT). The danger that came to light with the murder of PKK founder Sakine Cansız, KNK Member Fidan Doğan and Kurdish youth movement member Leyla Şaylemez in Paris on January 9, 2013 continues. With new MİT agents exposed daily, the scope of this threat comes to light. There are allegations that the MİT has teams operating in several European countries, and they are targeting Remzi Kartal, Zübeyir Aydar, Yüksel Koç and Sevahir Bayındır.

The documents Mehmet Fatih Sayan, a MİT agent who was arrested in Hamburg, had and the recordings that showed a man named Mustafa Karataş talking to MİT administrators on the phone corroborate these claims.

Remzi Kartal, Zübeyir Aydar, Yüksel Koç and Sevahir Bayındır spoke to the ANF. The Kurdish politicians stressed that the attack plans against them are part of Erdoğan’s plans to attack Kurds in all fronts and said: “The architect behind the plans to attack us in Europe is Erdoğan. All teams are under orders by units directly under Erdoğan. They aim to push our struggle back.” The Kurdish politicians criticized European states for turning a blind eye to these attempts and demanded they increase precautions.

AYDAR: THESE ATTACKS ARE PLANNED IN THE EMBASSIES

KNK Council Member Zübeyir Aydar stated that underneath the Turkish state is the policies to annihilate Kurds and added: “The Turkish state is waging a brutal and immoral war against the Kurdish Freedom Movement. They are tearing down cities in Kurdistan, and they burned innocent people. They are bombing Kurdistan. As part of this, they want to assassinate Kurdish politicians in Europe. These attacks started with the AKP, because the governments before the AKP never attempted such attacks on civilian Kurdish politicians in Europe. But Erdoğan doesn’t have any standards or respect for law. His politics are fraudulent and unruly.”

“These assassinations started in 2011. We obtained some intelligence back then. We learned that counter-guerilla units were sent to Europe to attack us,” said Aydar and added that they sometimes take precautions, but sometimes they were careless. Aydar continued: “We paid a heavy price for that. Here we have the Paris massacre. These attacks stopped between 2013 and 2015 because of the peace process. But these units just went underground. After the process fell apart, they were reactivated. Some of them have been arrested since, voice recordings have surfaced. On these recordings, they talk about 4 people. My name is among these four. The MİT administrator demands information within 3 hours to be able to do a pinpoint operation, which actually shows how serious this is. We told the European states before, but they didn’t believe us. Now what we told them is coming to pass.”

WARNING FOR EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Aydar criticized the disinterest from the European states and said: “We as Kurds and the movement take our own precautions, but our demand from the European states is to expose these relationships. Turkey committed a murder in Paris. Even though everything is clear as day, the French state keeps its silence. They want to close the matter with the death of the man cited as the murderer. The EU and France have been silent. We are warning them now: Turkey wants to do the same thing they did back then. There must be precautions. If France had shown the appropriate response then, Turkey wouldn’t be carrying out MİT activity against us now.”

Zübeyir Aydar stated that the Turkish MİT uses many European countries as a base, and continued: “At the top of this list of countries is Germany. The Netherlands, Belgium, France and Scandinavian countries are also used as bases. These activities are carried out in consulates and embassies. There are units who come in as diplomats and are engaged in this work alone. These are special forces. They carry out counter-guerilla activity. All the planning is done in Erdoğan’s palace. The final order comes out of there. But all these efforts are in vain. Maybe they can hit one of us due to our weaknesses, but they won’t achieve results. That would only strengthen our resolve and our devotion to the struggle.”

KOÇ: WE HAVE DOCUMENTS AND INFORMATION

Another politician targeted by the MİT is KCDK-E Co-chair Yüksel Koç. Koç mentioned Erdoğan’s comments against the Kurdish politicians in Europe, “Separatists and traitors carry out their activities in Europe. What is the Turkish youth there doing?” and said: 

“The Turkish youth and the consulates took this order and reactivated the sleeper cells. The partizan media, and the Anatolia Agency in particular, issued stories targeting Kurdish politicians.

According to the information and documents we have, there are two steps to this plan. The first is to send of a unit from Turkey. The second is to form a team from Turks who live here. And the consulates here act as headquarters for MİT and their agents. Clad in the armor of a diplomatic passport, they carry out these activities. And Erdoğan doesn’t think that is enough, and has created a paramilitary structure. This organization targets Kurdish politicians and opposition members who have had to come to Europe. When we look at the documents and information found on the agents exposed in France and Germany, we see that they are planning murders. That is what we see when we put everything together. It’s not a simple thing. There is a very planned and systemmic organization. The recently exposed voice recordings of Mustafa Karataş in Hamburg confirms this. There is the ‘gentleman’ that organizes this. Our sources confirm this also. There is a higher up unit and their sub-units. They divided Europe in sections. Their goal is to make a list of Kurdish politicians, representatives of institutions and renowned people and execute them. Last year, we received information that 3 execution teams arrived in Germany. They were situated in various regions separately. They work in mechanisms directly under Erdoğan. Again, according to information the Germany Federal Prosecutor’s Office has, at the time of his arrest in Koblenz Muhammed Taha Gergerlioğlu had documents showing which politicians and institutions were under surveillance, because he was one of the people organizing this at that time.”

THERE IS A CHAIN OF COMMAND

Yüksel Koç said the MİT has a long list of Kurdish politicians and Turkish democrats, opposition members and intellectuals who live in Europe, and that Germany knows this. He said Germany did not provide them this list.

Koç criticized European states and said: “The current lawsuits are carried out in an individual fashion. This is a great mistake, and it is wrong. We believe all the cases should be combined and the judicial process should begin. Because these people act in coordination. There is an organizing unit, an intelligence unit and an execution unit. These units work in a chain of command. The documents Mehmet Fatih Sayan had, another man captured in France, and Karatay’s voice recordings in Hamburg show this. It makes one think why Germany doesn’t combine these cases and handles them individually.”

KARTAL: “ERDOĞAN IS PANICKING”

KONGRA-GEL Co-chair Remzi Kartal stated that the attack plans against them are part of the war in Kurdistan and said: “The attack plans against us are related to the Turkish state’s and Erdoğan’s total war against our people. The state is engaged in all kinds of dirty relations to destroy our people’s will and moral values. This is the process we are going through. Along with the massacres in Cizre, Sur, Silopi, Şırnak and Gever, the operations against the guerilla, the policies against the political party, there is something in motion against Kurdish politicians and institutions in Europe. They want to kill us, remove us and disrupt the morale of the people with operations like Paris. When we take it as a whole, Erdoğan’s profile comes up. He goes to the US, and orders his diplomats to attack Kurds. He comes tu Europe, similarly he attacks the Kurdish institutions and politicians. This is part of the panic and defeat Erdoğan is spiraling into. Erdoğan has lost his confidence, his hold on power is unstable and that is why he pursues any kind of attacks. To this end, he targets Kurdish politicians.”

Kartal stressed that these activities are carried out in several countries in Europe and continued: “One reason Germany has become a base is that there is a large Turkish population. Because of that, these efforts continue intensely from Muhammed Taha Gergerlioğlu into today. It has been covered in the media as well, frequently. These activities are present in all countries with a large Kurdish population, like France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. The state is waging a total war against our people everywhere. So, the administrators in our institutions, our intellectuals and the opposition’s intelectuals should watch out for themselves. They have to keep the attacks in mind and carry out their efforts with more care and more insight.”

Kartal also stated that Erdoğan has been declared “persona non grata” in Europe and added: “The most recent events in the G-20 Summit and the latest arguments with Germany are evidence of this. Although it’s not at a level they want, the European states have turned away from Erdoğan. But that is not enough. The European states need to intervene with these MİT activities.”

BAYINDIR: “WE WON’T LOSE HEART”

Former BDP Şırnak MP Sevahir Bayındır was among the names cited in the voice recordings of calls between Hamburg resident Mustafa Karataş and MİT officials, and she is one of the targets. Bayındır went to Germany after an arrest warrant was issued against her in Turkey, and she has been engaged in democratic politics in Kurdish institutions there. Bayındır said, “I had to come to Europe because I was left defenseless in every area in Turkey, including health, law and politics,” and added:

“I was subjected to a vile attack in Turkey, during a democratic event, while I had the supposed ‘armor’ of immunity. The purpose of this attack was very clear. They aimed to leave the society in Botan defenseless, they wanted to intimidate them, and to prevent the public from seeing the rights violations committed by he system. Us exposing the dagger team incident and questioning who the murderers of the young people doing smuggling disturbed the successors of the dagger team in the place the JİTEM had laid down roots. I was directly targeted because our pursuit of rights and the truth exposed the gang mentality. I was targeted because they wanted to break the Kurdish women’s rising resistance in the person of the women of Botan. After I was attacked, I couldn’t walk for a long time. I had four operations, one of them in Turkey. The reason I chose Europe was that there was more even medical, social and legal conditions, albeit relatively. The democratic struggle we carry out here must have disturbed some people that they made such a decision. But everybody should know that no attacks can make us lose heart.”

CALL FOR SOLIDARITY

Bayındır also stressed that the plans against her are a continuation of past attacks and said:

“Turkey’s plans of attack are not independent from the attacks in the past. The purpose of the attack in Europe is the same as the purpose of the attack against me in Silopi. Whatever the scope of the attack, we won’t give up on the march for rights and the truth. This mindset will one day have to answer to the people. I am calling on the German state, which prides itself on being a democratic and social state, lawyers, feminist institutions, human rights defenders and the democratic public to resistance, solidarity and awareness in the face of these attacks planned against us and against all opposition groups in our person. Sara’s fight is our fight. Turning into the living dead is the worst of deaths. We never feared this system, and we never will. We would welcome death.”