PKK Executive Council Member Murat Karayılan spoke to the Dengê Kurdistan (Voice of Kurdistan) Radio on AKP’s plans to disband the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, the stage of the war, the Turkish state’s policies on Rojava and Southern Kurdistan and the importance of the national unity among Kurds.

First part of the highlights from Murat Karayılan’s speech, translated by ANF English service, is as follows:

CONTENT OF THE AKP-MHP CONCEPT IS ANIMOSITY AGAINST KURDS

“In the current situation, the AKP regime has decided on a new concept. Within the context of this concept, AKP has taken the MHP line as a basis. With that, MHP has been rendered redundant, and they have been forced to march alongside AKP. The content of this concept is animosity against Kurds. The AKP have defined a purpose for themselves to ensure the Kurdish people aren’t a part of the redesign of the region and that they can defeat the Kurds absolutely. The very existence of the regime and the system depends upon this. Erdoğan is leading anti-Kurdish sentiment today in this basis. Using the attempted coup as an excuse to seize the state completely, they have focused entirely towards the Kurdish people and the gains of the Kurdish people. They prepared plans in the context of this concept. According to this plan,

First, they want to deepen the isolation imposed upon Leader Apo, prevent his voice being heard, and thus making him retreat and achieve their goals through the implementation of a nuanced and deep psychological war and a policy of torture in İmralı. They planned to expand this policy into all of Turkey’s dungeons step by step.

Second, they shut down all Kurdish institutions and they targeted the gains of the Kurdish people. According to their own numbers, they closed 390 Kurdish institutions in one go. They abolished all democratic, cultural, political and other such institutions of the Kurdish people.

Third, they planned to confiscate the hundred municipalities that were held by the Kurdish political movement. But, they are seizing 2 or 3 at a time, with breaks in between, so there won’t be a worldwide reaction. In essence, they are arresting people elected by popular vote with this practice that needs to be defined as a coup, and appointing their own officers and district governors as trustees. This is a great attack on the will of the Kurdish people. This is the true coup.

The fourth pillar of this concept is the targeting of Kurdish politics and pushing the Kurds out of the political arena. For this, they arrested HDP co-chairs and 11 HDP MPs, and they keep on detaining and releasing other MPs every day, pressuring them daily. Thousands of HDP and DBP officials are arrested today. Just in this latest process, 4 thousand people have been detained.

In line with this concept, the fifth pillar is the pressure towards the people. In the context of the special psychological war, an extensive oppression is in place right now. Today they are implementing a candy-whip policy. They strike occasionally, then occasionally say “I will help”, aiming to chastise the Kurdish people and make them bow down. In this basis, they are currently developing a fascist oppression and tyranny in Kurdistan. For this, they keep on extending the State of Emergency.

As a sixth point, we can talk about the policy towards the Kurdish youth. They want to derail the Kurdish youth. Today, there is a very extensive psychological war and attack towards the Kurdish youth. They are implementing a special policy of cruelty towards the youth and the women so they don’t protect the freedom struggle and their identity, so they are always afraid.

Seventh, there are the extensive operations they have developed against the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrillas. In the fall, there were attacks so “the guerrilla didn’t build bases in the winter”. Now, they are attacking to determine their winter bases and clear out the guerrilla. There are extensive attacks in the cities and the rural areas both. They aim to create groups of martyrdoms in every operation to demoralize the Kurdish people and break the hope the people have with the freedom guerrillas by bringing bodies to the cities. Thus, in the dead of winter, they are carrying out unprecedented operations.

Eighth, we can talk about the attacks on the allies of the Kurdish people. There is an attack on Turkey’s revolutionary-democratic movements in particular. Today, all who don’t bow down to Erdoğan are targeted by the AKP-MHP regime one way or the other. In this context, they have targeted many people, arresting and silencing them. So, it’s not just Kurds, all who are friendly towards Kurds, leftists, socialists, and anybody who wants democracy in Turkey or anybody who opposes the politics of AKP-MHP are now targets.

The ninth and last step of this concept can be said to be a goal to create a monotone voice in addition to all the oppressive, fascist and tyrannical practices. To this end, they are focusing extensively on the media. They shut down many media institutions. Right now, because of the 150 journalists they have arrested, Turkey is #2 in the list of countries with most imprisoned journalists. So much so that it wouldn’t be wrong to say that there is only one channel in Turkey right now. Although there are many networks under different names, they all have to go live when Erdoğan or an AKP administrator speaks. Whatever they have on their agenda, whatever Erdoğan talks about in his speeches, becomes the agenda for the country. They want to confiscate the agenda, create a perception in the society, run the society according to themselves and turn the people of Turkey into a tool for pscyhological war. They attacked all of the Kurdish media to this end, but they also attacked the Turkish media hard. In this way, they aim to build an empire of fear and develop monism.

IT’S NOT JUST THE NORTH, ROJAVA AND THE SOUTH ARE ALSO TARGETED

In addition to all this, they also had a policy towards Rojava Kurdistan and Southern Kurdistan. They launched an operation they called “Euphrates Shield” on Rojava. Erdoğan said, “We will swiftly take Bab, then Manbij, then we will turn towards Raqqa,” and added that Efrîn was also a target. So, they wanted to intervene with internal affairs of Syria like this, thus targeting the Rojava Revolution, especially disrupting their international relationships through military-diplomatic attacks and adding PYD and YPG to the terrorist organizations list, thereby smothering the Rojava Revolution. What they did to Southern Kurdistan was to strengthen the airstrikes, attacking Shengal as well as Medya Defense Zones and most importantly, creating a divide among Kurdish forces to develop a civil war.

They aimed to achieve results through this until March. To this end, that man Süleyman Soylu said, “Nobody will speak of the PKK until March.” Because they wanted to defeat the North, smother Rojava, crush the South in this way, and clean up whatever may be left in April.

THE AKP-MHP CONCEPT HAS FAILED

There is one month left until March. They have yet to achieve success in any of these plans. The Kurdish People’s Leader, the Kurdistan Freedom Struggle, Kurdish politicians, the Kurdish people and Kurdistan revolutionaries in all four parts have stood against these attacks by the AKP-MHP alliance and nowhere has this concept achieved success. Even though the winter isn’t over yet, they have failed to achieve any results yet. So, it can be said now that these plans have failed. So the situation is not one where nobody will speak of the PKK in March as that ignoble man has said, but one where the PKK will be spoken of more in March, the resistance of the PKK will spread throughout all of Kurdistan and the Middle East, and it will prevail. Of course, as an ongoing process, it needs to be underlined once more that the enemy attacks continue in the winter conditions, and the resistance of our people and our movement is increasing in the face of these attacks.